BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 411 
Coloration.—Above spotted with fuscous and grayish buffy, the tail 
grayish brown or brownish gray barred with fuscous; primaries 
wholly fuscous, even on inner-webs, or with only an indistinct edging, 
or marginal mottling, on the latter; pileum fuscous streaked with buffy 
and divided medially by a line of the same; under parts dull buffy 
(more or less deep) the foreneck and chest streaked with fuscous, the 
sides and flanks more or less barred with the same; axillars cinnamon- 
bufly (more or less deep) barred with grayish brown or fuscous. 
Range.—Northern parts of Northern Hemisphere, far southward 
in migration. (Two species.) 
The type of Mesoscolopar agrees so closely with ‘‘ Numenius”’ 
borealis in essential features of structure and in details of coloration 
that it seems necessary to place the two species together, the only 
alternative being to make a special genus for WN. borealis, a procedure 
which the slight structural differences do not, in my opinion, warrant. 
In MU. minutus the legs and toes are relatively longer and more slender, 
the lateral membrane of the anterior toes decidedly less developed, 
and both the acrotarsium and planta tarsi, as well as both anterior 
and posterior sides of the naked portion of the tibia, are always 
distinctly and regularly transversely scutellate. In MW. borealis the 
legs and toes are relatively shorter and stouter, the lateral mem- 
brane of the anterior toes is conspicuously developed, and only the 
acrotarsium is (as a rule) regularly transversly scutellate; but occa- 
sional specimens show a scutellation of the planta tarsi closely ap- 
proximating a regular single series of transverse scutella, and the 
posterior side of the naked portion of the tibia is often covered with 
large, decidedly transverse scales. In coloration the two species 
agree so minutely that the pale buff axillars and under wing-coverts 
of M. minutus and the cinnamon-buff of the same in M. borealis 
constitute practically the only difference. The bill is, apparently, 
slightly less decurved in M. minutus than in UW. borealis. 
KEY TO THE SPECIES OF MESOSCOLOPAX. 
a. Tarsus distinctly transversely scutellate behind; ground color of axillars and 
under wing-coverts pale buff. (Eastern Siberia, etc., migrating to Moluccas, 
Australia, Cte: )neecssceweveseasnesccer Mesoscolopax minutus (extralimital).¢ 
a Numenius minutus Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1840, 176 (New South Wales); 
Birds Australia, vi, 1848, pl. 49 and text; Temminck and Schlegel, Fauna Japonica, 
Aves, 1849, 111, pl. 67; Seebohm, Geog. Distr. Charadriide, 1887, 335; Birds Jap. 
Empire, 1890, 317; Mathews, Birds Australia, iii, pt. 2, 1918, pl. [146] facing p. 180.— 
Mesoscolopax minutus Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxiv, 1896, 371: Mathews, Birds 
Australia, iii, pt. 2, 1913, 180.—Numenius minor (not of Leach, 1816) 8. Miller, Verh. 
Land-en Volkenk., 1840, 110; Dresser, Birds Europe, viii, 1873, 245; Ramsay, Tab. 
List Austral. Birds, 1888, 20.—(?) Numenius brevirostris (not of Lichtenstein, 1823) 
Rosenberg, Nat. Tijdschr. Nederl. Ind., xxv, 1863, 255; Journ. fiir Orn., 1864, 137. 
