LITTLE GREENSHANK. 137 



outer feathers with irregular dark lines on the outer margins ; head and hind -neck 

 grey, minutely streaked with black ; sides of face, throat, and breast white, sparsely 

 spotted and streaked with black more coarsely on the sides of the breast and sides 

 of body, sometimes taking the form of bars on the latter ; remainder of under-surface 

 white with a few dark narrow streaks on the under tail-coverts ; axillaries and 

 under wing-coverts also white ; lower primary-coverts grey, fringed with white. 



Adult female. Similar to the adult male but larger. 



Adult in winter-plumage. Differs from the adult in summer-plumage in the 

 absence of the dark arrowheaded black blotches on the feathers of the back, the long 

 secondaries not so conspicuously barred, in having fewer dark striations on the sides 

 of the neck and body, and in having the fore-head quite white ; bill black, lower 

 base grey ; iris brown ; feet and legs olive-yellow. Total length 210 ; culmen 38, 

 wing 146, tail 62, tarsus 53. 



Bird of the year. Hinder crown, hind-neck, mantle, scapulars, and long inner- 

 most secondaries ash-grey with dark shaft-streaks and pale margins to the feathers, 

 some of the long innermost secondaries have longitudinal dark lines ; wings darker 

 than in the breeding-plumage, as also the lower back and rump ; tail white, mottled 

 with grey on the outer webs and more or less barred on the inner webs of the middle 

 feathers ; inner webs of outer feathers pure white ; under-surface white. 



Nestling. Like those of the preceding in general style of plumage, but with 

 shorter legs and of paler shade. 



Nest. A depression in the grass. 



Eggs. Clutch, four ; surface glossy ; ground-colour very pale yellow, sometimes 

 shading to a greenish tint. The spots larger on the larger end, where they often 

 form a kind of irregular zone ; in some there are large spots on the smaller end, 

 but never so large as those on the upper end. Dimensions : axis 38 to 39.6 mm., 

 diameter 26 to 28. 



Breeding-season. June. (Siberia.) 



Distribution and forms. Throughout northern Europe and Asia, migrating 

 southward as far as Australia in winter. Though Mathews recorded : " Eastern 

 specimens in summer-plumage are certainly brighter on the upper-surface, the black 

 markings being less noticeable, while the spotting on the breast and flanks is not 

 so bold and probably larger," these differences have not been accepted yet, mainly 

 on account of lack of series. 



Genus RHYACOPHILUS. 



Bhyacophilus Kaup, Skizz. Entwick. -Gesch. Nat. Syst., p. 140, (pref. April) 1829. Type (by 

 monotypy) : Tritiga glareola Linne. 



Small Totanine Waders with short straight slender bills, long wings, short 

 tail, long legs, and long feet. The culmen is short, straight and slender, with the 

 groove in the upper mandible scarcely extending beyond half its length ; it is less 

 than one-fourth the length of the wing and shorter than the metatarsus, and only 

 about equal to the middle toe and claw. 



The wings are long and pointed with the first primary longest, and more than 

 twice the length of the tail and more than three times the length of the metatarsus. 

 The tail is comparatively short and rounded, less than half the wing and longer than 

 the metatarsus, but shorter than the metatarsus and exposed tibia. 



The metatarsus is of medium length, being less than the tail but longer than 

 the culmen or middle toe : the exposed tibia is however proportionately long, being 

 more than half the length of the metatarsus. The toes are long, the middle toe 

 being two-thirds the length of the metatarsus, longer than the exposed tibia, and 

 little less than the culmen, with the claw exceeding the last named. The webbing, 

 of the feet is as in the preceding genus and a long hind -toe is present. 



