ZOOLOGY. 237 



1 never observed but two red phalaropes in Washington Territory, and those hite in November 

 appeared during a storm in Shoahvater bay, where they swam in the surf near slioro picking 

 at small Crustacea washed out of the sand. They seemed much more aquatic in their habits 

 than the preceding, and I am inclined to think that the birds seen in large flocks off the coasts 

 of California and Mexico in winter are of this species. — C. 



Family SC0L0PAC1DAE,-T h e Snipes. 



Sub-Family SCOLOPACINAE.— Short-legged Snipe. 



GALLINAGO WILSONII, (Temm.) Bon. 



Wilson's Snipe ; English Snipe. 



Scolopax loilionii, Temm. PI. Col. V, livraison Lxvni, about 1824. In text of Scolopax giganlea. — Bon. Syn. 1828, 

 330.— Swains. F. B. Am. II, 1831, 401.— Nutt. Man^ II, 185.— AuD. Orn. Blog. Ill, 1835, 

 322 : V, 1839, 583 ; pi 243.— Ib Syn. 248.— Ib. Birds Amer. V, 1842, 339 ; pi. 350. 

 Gallinago u-ikonii, Bonap. List, 1838 — Baikd & Cassin, Gen. Kep. Birds, 710. 

 Scolopax gallinago, Wiis Am. Orn. VI, 1812, 18. Not of Linnaeus. 

 Scolopax ddicata, OKD.cd. Wlls. IX, 1825, 218. 

 ? Scolopax drummondii, Sw. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 400 — AuD. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 319.— Ib. Syn. 249.- Ib. Birds 



Amer. V. 

 ? Scolopax douglassii, Sw. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 400. 

 ? Scolopax leucurus, Sw. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 50. 

 Sp. Ch. — Bill long, compressed, flattened and slightly expanded towards the tip, pustulated in it.= terminal half: wings 

 rather long ; legs moderate ; tail short. Entire upper paits brownish bl.acli ; every feather spotted and widely edged with 

 light rufous, yellowish brown or ashy white ; back and rump transversely barred and spotted with the same ; a line from 

 the base of the bill over the top of the head. Throat and neck before, dull reddish a.shy ; wing feather marked with dull 

 brownish black ; other under parts white, with transverse bars of brownish black on the sides, axillary feathers and under 

 wing coverts and under tail coverts ; quills brownish black ; outer edge of first primary white ; tail glossy browni.sh black, 

 widely tipped with bright rufous, paler at the tip, and with a subfcrminal narrow band of black ; outer feathers of tail paler, 

 frequently nearly white and barred with black throughout their length. Bill brown, yellowish at base and darker towards 

 the end ; legs dark brown. 



Male: length, 10 to 10. 50 ; extent, 16. Female: length, 11 ; extent, 17 inches ; wing, 5 ; tail, 2^ ; bill, 2| ; tarsus, 1 J inch. 

 Feet pale greenish gray. 



Hab. — Entire temperate regions of North America. California, (Mr. Szabo.) 



Wilson's snipe is generally distributed throughout all such portions of Oregon and Wash- 

 ington where nature has provided them with suitable abiding places. Many remain in the 

 vicinity of Puget Sound throughout the winter, unless it be unusually cold. This is not 

 surprising when we consider the mild open character of the winter of the coast region of those 

 Territories, which, unlike the hard, cold season of places on the Atlantic coast of the same 

 northern latitude, is what might lie properly termed a rainy season. 



Further in the interior they are found, and a few winter near Fort Dalles, on the Columbia. 

 In that vicinity I found several individuals on a cold day in the winter of 1854-55 who had 

 retreated from their ordinary haunts — owing to the frozen condition of the surface of the 

 ground and a slight fall of snow — and were then bus}^ close to the edge of an open running 

 brook, running along the line where the snow had been melted by the ripples of the water, 

 and feeding and acting at the time much like sandpipers — having been thus driven by sheer 

 necessity to an almost complete abandonment of their ordinary habits. It is probable that had 

 the change in the weather been less sudden, these birds would have migrated further south; 



