3G0 



TOTANUS. 



Literature. Plates. — Swainson & Richardson, Faun. Bor.-Amer., Birds, pi. 67. 



Habits. — Baird, Brewer, & Ridgway, "Water-Birds N. Amer. i. p. 285. 



Eggs.— American ornithologists do not appear to have discriminated between the eggs of the 

 two forms of Willet. 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- 

 tion. 



To Mr. George Cavendish Taylor belongs the credit of having discovered that there 

 are two forms of the Willet. He observed them both in considerable numbers on the east 

 coast of Florida, and remarked that they never intermixed. It is supposed that the larger 

 form breeds in the Pacific States from the source of the Saskatchewan to California, and 

 winters in the Gulf of Mexico and the neighbouring coasts. It is on an average a larger 

 bird than the Eastern form, as the following dimensions prove : — 



Subspecific 

 characters. 



Length of wing from carpal joint . 



T. semipalmatus. 



7-0 to 8-1 



Length of tarsus 2 - to 2"6 



Length of bill from frontal feathers . . 2 - to 2 "5 



T. speculiferus. 



7-9 to 8-6 

 2-2 to 2-9 

 2-3 to 2-7 



Brewster says that the plumage also differs slightly in colour ; but in the examples 

 which I have examined I can see no difference that is not attributable to age or season. 



TOTANUS INCANUS. 



AMERICAN WANDERING TATTIER. 



Diagnosis. Totanus axillaribus nigricantibus : remigibus hand albo notatis. 



Variations. Asiatic examples of this species may fairly be regarded as subspecifically distinct. 

 Ornithologists who set an extravagant value on so-called structural characters would 

 doubtless place them in a different genus. 



Synonymy. Scolopax incana, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 658 (1788). 



Totanus pedestris, Lesson, Traite d'Orn. p. 552 (1831, partim). 

 Totanus fuliginosus, Gould, Zool. Voy. 'Beagle,' Birds, p. 130 (1841). 



' \ Lichtenslein, Forster's Descr. Anim. It. Mar. Austr. p. 173 (1844). 

 Scolopax pacifica, J 



