SCOL OP A CIB^ : TA TTLEBS. 



637 



longer than head, straight, its tip not expanded, knobbed, nor notably sensitive; grooved 

 about half its length only ; culmen not furrowed. Gape of inouth reaching beyond base of 

 culmen. BUI much stouter than usual in Tattlers. Legs stout. Feet semipalmate, with 

 decided web between inner and middle as well as outer and middle toes. Tarsus longer than 

 middle toe and claw, seuteUate before and behind. (General characters of Totcmus at large, 

 but bill and feet stout, latter bluish, and toes semipalmate. See fig. 49.) One N. Am. species. 

 633. S. semipalma'ta. (Lat. semipalmata, half-webbed. Fig. ^i^.) Semipalmatbd Tattler, 

 WiLLET. Adult ^ 9 , in summer : Upper parts ashy, confoundedly speckled to greater or 

 less extent with black- 

 ish ; this sometimes 

 giving the prevailing 

 tone, but in lighter col- 

 ored cases the blackish 

 restricted to an irregu- 

 lar central field on each 

 feather, throwing out 

 angular processes and 

 tending to become 

 transverse bars. When 

 such dark fields pre- 

 vail, the upper parts 

 become quite blackish, 

 speckled with ashy- 

 white, like Totanus 

 melanoleiKus, for ex- 

 ample. Furthermore, 

 there is often a slight ru- 

 fescence. Under parts 



white, sometimes with a rufous or brownish tinge, the jugulum and breast spotted and streaked, 

 the sides barred or arrow-headed, with brownish-black. AxUlars and lining of wing, edge of 

 wing and primary coverts, sooty-blackish. Primaries blackish, with a great space white at 

 base, partly overlaid and concealed by the primary coverts, partly showing conspicuously as a 

 speculum J shafts white along this space. Most secondaries white; most upper tail-coverts 

 white, the shorter ones dark like rump, the longer ones barred like tail. Tail ashy, incom- 

 pletely barred with blackish ; lateral feathers pale, or marbled with white. Bill dark ; legs 

 bluish. It is evidently a mistake to describe the wiUet as merely gray and white. Length 

 about 16.00; wing 8.00; tail 3.00; bill 2.25-3.75; tarsus the same; middle toe and claw 

 1.67. ^ 9 in winter, and young : Character of wing as before. Above, light ashy, nearly 

 or quite uniform ; tail corresponding with this gray state ; upper tail-coverts white. Below, 

 white, shaded with ashy on the jugulum, breast, and sides. Every stage occurs between the 

 two here described. Temperate N. Am. at large, N. to 56° at least, but chiefly U. S.; breeding 

 throughout its U. S. range, and resident in the Southern States. A large, stout tattler, known 

 at a glance by its white-mirrored black-lined wings and blue legs, too plentiful for such a wary, 

 restless, and noisy bird in marshes for the convenience of gunners, as its shrill reiterated cries, 

 incessant when its breeding places are invaded, alarm the whole neighborhood. Breeds by 

 pairs or in small companies in fresh or salt marshes ; nest a slight affair in a tussock of grass 

 or reeds just out of the water; eggs 3-4, 1.90 to 2.12 X 1-45 to 1.55, average 3.00 X 1.50, 

 less pointedly pyriform than usual iu this family, brownish or buify-olive or clay color, boldly 

 and distinctly spotted and splashed with umber-brown shades, little massed at the great end, 

 with the usual shell-markings. 



Fie. 444. — Willets. (From Lewis.) 



