444 RED-BREASTED SNIPE. 
the case with 7. platyrhynca: the nails are of a blackish horn 
colour. Such is this bird as it appears in the end of summer 
and early in autumn on the New Jersey coasts, still apparently 
in its perfect nuptial dress, or nearly so. Mr Say informs us 
that all the individuals of the many flocks observed at Engineer 
Cantonment both in the spring and autumn were of equal 
size; and we have also found the sexes to agree in this respect, 
perhaps more than is usual in other sandpipers: in the spring 
dress, according to the same author, the colour of the upper 
part of the bird is much paler, almost destitute of black, and 
the feathers margined with pale cinereous. The upper part 
of the head is always darker than any part of the neck, and 
margined with ferruginous: the plumage of the neck beneath 
and the breast does not appear to undergo so much change as 
that of the upper part of the body. We have not seen the 
bird in this plumage, but it will be evident to every ornitho- 
logist conversant with the sandpipers that the specimens 
described by Say were still in the winter dress, and we may 
conclude that the changes in this species are analogous to 
those of its allies. 
Several specimens of both sexes that we shot in New Jersey, 
evidently young birds, as they were killed at the same season 
as the adults described, are considerably paler and duller, the 
tints being blended and ill defined: the white even of the 
throat is dingy, the quills and tail-feathers almost uniformly 
dusky and destitute of margins: they have not the least trace 
of the outer toe membrane. 
RED-BREASTED SNIPE. (Scolapax grisea.) 
PLATE XXIII.—Fre. 3. 
Scolopax grisea, Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 658, sp. 27.—ZLath. Ind. ii. p. 724, sp. 33. 
Suppl. i. p. 444, sp. 42, winter dress.—Temm. Man. Orn. ii. p. 679.—WNob. 
Obs. Wils. sp. 205; Id. Cat. and Syn. Birds U.S. sp. 267 ; Id. Specch. Comp. 
sp. 206; Id. Monog. Scolop. in Obs. Cuv. p. 115, sp. 2.—Scolopax novebora- 
censis, Gmel. Syst. i. p. 658, sp. 28.—Lath. Ind. ii. p. 723, sp. 32, summer 
dress.—Scolopax Paykulli, Wilss. Orn. Suec. ii. p. 106, sp. 186, tab. xi.— 

