

YELLOW-SHANKS SNIPE. OS 



227. TOTAXUS FLiriPES, VIEILL. SCOLOFAX FLAfJPSS, WILSOX. 



YELLOW-SHANKS SNIPE. 

 WILSON, PLATE LVIII. FIG. IV. 



OF this species I have but little to say. It inhabits 

 our sea coasts and salt marshes during summer ; fre- 

 quents the flats at low water, and seems particularly 

 fond of walking among the mud, where it doubtless 

 finds its favourite food in abundance. I have never 

 met with its nest, nor with auy person acquainted with 

 its particular place or manner of breeding. It is a 

 plentiful species, and great numbers are brought to 

 market in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, parti- 

 cularly in autumn. Though these birds do not often 

 penetrate far inland, yet, on the 5th September, 

 I shot several dozens of them in the meadows of 

 Schuylkill, below Philadelphia. There had been a 

 violent northeast storm a day or two previous, and a 

 large flock of these, accompanied by several species of 

 trinya, and vast numbers of the short-tailed tern, ap- 

 peared at once among the meadows. As a bird for the 

 table, the yellow-shanks, when fat, is in considerable 

 repute. Its chief residence is in the vicinity of the 

 sea, where there are extensive mud flats. It has a sharp 

 whistle, of three or four notes, when about to take wing, 

 and when flying. These birds may be shot down with 

 great facility, if the sportsman, after the first discharge, 

 will only lie close, and permit the wounded birds to 

 flutter about without picking them up ; the 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, aisd 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 



