122 YELLOW-SHANKS SNIPE. 



flock will generally make a circuit and alight repeatedly, until 

 the greater part of them may be shot down.* 



Length of the Yellow-shanks ten inches, extent twenty ; bill 

 slender, straight, an inch and a half in length, and black; line 

 over the eye, chin, belly and vent, white; breast and throat 

 gray; general colour of the plumage above dusky brown olive, 

 inclining to ash, thickly marked with small triangular spots of 

 dull white; tail-coverts white; tail also white, handsomely barred 

 with dark olive; wings plain dusky, the secondaries edged, and 

 all the coverts edged and tipt, with white; shafts black; eye also 

 black; legs and naked thighs long and yellow; outer toe united 

 to the middle one by a slight membrane; claws a horn colour. 

 The female can scarcely be distinguished from the male. 



Note. Mr. Ord in his reprint gives the following more mi- 

 nute description, of a female, shot on the twenty-second of April: 

 ' ' length upwards of ten inches, breadth twenty inches; irides 

 brown; bill slender, straight, an inch and a half in length, and 

 black, mandibles of equal length, the upper bent downwards at 

 fhe tip; throat, lower parts, thighs, and under tail-coverts, white 

 the last are generally marked on their exterior vanes with 

 brown; those next to the tail barred with the same; lower part 

 of the neck, with the breast, gray, the feathers streaked down 

 their centres with dusky; head and back part of the neck black, 

 the plumage edged with gray, in some specimens edged with 

 brown ash, upper parts black, with oblong spots of white, in- 

 termixed with pale brown feathers; rump brown, edged with 

 white; upper tail-coverts white, barred with brown; the tail is 

 composed of twelve feathers, white, barred with ashy brown, the 

 upper feathers, in some, gray brown, marked on their vanes, 

 though not across, with brown and white; wings, when closed, 

 extend somewhat beyond the tail; primaries and secondaries 

 dusky; shaft of first primary whitish above, the rest of the shafts 



* These birds are very common, in the early part of May, on the muddy -flats 

 of our rivers, particularly in the vicinity of Philadelphia, and are that period in 

 good condition. 



