BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 437 
Plumage and coloration.—Plumage of head, neck, and under parts 
dense, gull-like. Under parts, sometimes head and neck also 
usually also scapulars, immacu'ate white; upper parts mostly black 
or dusky; head and neck sometimes cinnamomeous, at least in part 
Range.—Temperate portions of North America, Europe and Asia, 
northern Africa, Australia, and Peruvian Andes. (Five species, of 
which only two are American.) 
KEY TO THE AMERICAN SPECIES OF RECURVIROSTRA. 
a, Scapulars and tips of greater wing-coverts and secondaries white; longer tertiala 
and tail pale gray; head and neck cinnamomeous in summer plumage; bill only 
moderately recurved. (Temperate North America.) 
; Recurvirostra americana (p. 437). 
aa. Scapulars and whole of wing and tail sooty blackish; head and neck pure white in 
summer plumage; bill very strongly recurved. (Chilean Andes.) 
Recurvirostra andina (extralimital).4 
RECURVIROSTRA AMERICANA Gmelin. 
AMERICAN AVOCET. 
Adults in summer (sexes alike).—Head (except anteriorly), neck, 
and chest light cinnamon, passing into white on anterior portion of 
head; outer scapulars, median interscapulars, rump, upper tail- 
coverts, under parts of body (including under tail-coverts), proximal 
secondaries, and broad tips to greater wing-coverts white; wings 
(except proximal secondaries and distal half of greater coverts), 
inner (proximal) scapulars and adjacent lateral interscapulars 
brownish black; tail grayish white or very pale gray; axillars and 
under wing-coverts white; bill black; iris brown;° legs and feet 
light grayish blue. 
Adulis in winter.—Similar to the summer plumage, but head, neck, 
and chest white, tinged with pale bluish gray, especially on pileum 
and hindneck. 
Young.—Similar to winter adults but hindneck tinged with light 
cinnamon or tawny, primaries slightly tipped with whitish, and 
scapulars, etc., tipped or transversly mottled with light cinnamon or 
tawny. 
Adult male.—Wing, 214.5-230 (222.4); tail, 79-90 (83.8); culmen, 
75-97 (89.6); tarsus, 85-100 (91.3); middle toe, 38-46.5 (41.9).¢ 
@ Recurvirostra andina Philippi and Landbeck, Anal. Univ. Chile, xix, Nov., 1861, 
131; Wiegmann’s Archiv fiir Naturg., xxix, 1863, 121 (Parunicota, Chile, 16,000 ft.); 
Taczanowski, Orn. du Pérou, iii, 1886, 384; Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxiv, 1896, 
334, 752.—Recurvirostris andina Harting, Ibis, 1874, 257, pl. 9 (monogr.).—Himantopus 
andinus Seebohm, Ibis, 1886, 232; Geogr. Distr. Charadriide, 1888, 286. 
b Not red, as stated by some authorities. 
¢ Ten specimens. 
