RED-BREASTED SNIPE. 289 
Adult in Winter. Plate CCCXXXV. Fig. 2.” 
The bill, iris, and feet as in summer. Upper part of head and hind 
neck dusky grey, with which the feathers of the fore part of the back, 
seapulars and wing-coverts are margined, their central parts being 
brownish-black. A white band from the bill over the eye ; margins of 
eyelids also white. Hind part of back and tail barred with dusky as 
in summer. Quills as in summer, the inner marked with grey in place 
of brownish-red. Loral space, cheeks, and sides of the neck, pale grey ; 
throat and lower parts white; the sides,.axillary feathers, and lower 
tail-feathers, barred with dusky ; lower wing-coverts dusky, edged with 
white, and having a central streak of the same. Individuals exhibit 
great differences in the length of the bills and tarsi. 
On the upper mandible internally are three series of minute papille, 
which become larger on the palate. While the 
upper mandible is flat beneath, the lower is 
deeply concave, and its crura elastic and capable 
of being separated near the base to the distance 
of three-fourths of an inch. The tongue, which 
is 2 inches long, and of a slender form, carinate 
beneath, with the tip pointed, lies in the deep 
hollow of the lower mandible, and being deeply 
concave above, leaves a vacant space, by which, 
when the bill is immersed in the mud and the 
tips separated, the food passes along. The ceso- 
phagus is 43 inches long, 1 inch in diameter, and 
nearly uniform. The proventriculus, a, }, c, is bul- 
biform, its diameter 6 twelfths. The stomach, ¢, d, ¢, f, is an vbiong giz- 
zard of moderate strength, with the lateral and inferior muscles decided, 
the tendons large, its length 1 inch, its breadth 8 twelfths The epi- 
thelium is dense, tough, with numerous longitudinal ruge, and of a red- 
dish colour. The contents of the stomach were very small hard hemi- 
spherical seeds and vegetable fibres. The intestine, f, gs 4, 194 inches 
long, its diameter 3 twelfths in its upper part ; the cceca 13 inch long, 
and from 1 to 2 tweifths in diameter, with the extremity obtuse. 
The trachea is wide, flattened, 34 inches long, 23 twelfths broad at 
the top, gradually diminishing to 2 twelfths ; the rings about 130. The 
contractor muscles are very thin, the sterno-tracheal slender ; and there 
is a pair of inferior iaryngeal. ‘Che bronchial half rings are about 25. 
VOL. Iv. a 
