General 
descrip- 
tion. 
92 GRALLATORES. RECURVIROSTRA. Avocrr. 
In Africa, it is met with in Egypt, and other parts; and the 
species sent from the Cape of Good Hope appears also to be 
identical. 
Piate 20. Represents this bird of the natural size. 
Head, nape, and two-thirds of the hinder part of the neck, 
black. The cheeks, the rest of the neck, and the whole 
body white, with the exception of the outer scapulars, 
the middle wing-coverts, and the greater quills, which 
are black. Bill black. Legs and toes bluish-grey. 
The young, previous to the first moulting, have those 
parts which are of deep black in the adult birds, more 
inclining to brown, and in them, the black on the head 
extends but little beyond the occiput. The dark sca- 
pular feathers, and intermediate wing-coverts, are also 
margined with reddish-grey. 
Genus LIMOSA, Briss. GODWIT. 
GENERIC CHARACTERS. 
Bitz very long, rather thick at the base, compressed, more 
or less turned upwards, higher than broad, semi-flexible 
throughout its whole length; culmen rounded from the base 
for two-thirds of its length, the remainder to the tip flattened ; 
both mandibles laterally grooved to within a short distance 
from the point, which is somewhat dilated, and blunt; tip 
of the upper mandible projecting beyond the lower one; 
angle of the chin very narrow, and extending about one- 
third of the length of the bill. 
Nostrils near the base; placed in the lateral groove, nar- 
row, and longitudinal. 
Wings acuminate, of mean length; the first quill-feather 
the longest. 
