450 . RED-BREASTED SNIPE. 
As for Macroramphus, as we have observed, it forms the 
transition to Totanus, which would be enough to show the 
impropriety of Boie’s course in considering the genus Scolopax 
as a family of itself. Temminck’s name of Becassine chevalier 
is peculiarly descriptive, and alone contradicts his unjust 
censure of Dr Leach’s genus, a group whose scientific char- 
acters were first laid down by our friend Mr Say, though he 
referred the species to Limosa. 
In its winter plumage the red-breasted snipe, instead of the 
mottled garb in which it is familiar, is of an uniform dusky 
cinereous: the specimen lying before us is eleven and a half 
inches long and nineteen in extent. The bill is two and a 
quarter inches long, of a dull greenish; the tip is black, and 
obtains the strongly marked dorsal groove that so well distin- 
cuishes a Scolopax from the allied genera. The prevailing 
dusky cinereous colour extends over the head, neck, and wine- 
coverts, the back and scapulars being of a lighter dusky cine- 
reous, and each feather darker on its margin and tip: a broad 
line from the upper mandible passing over the eye, and the 
lower orbit, are white: between the eye and bill is a dusky 
line ; the irides are brown: the cheeks, throat, and upper por- 
tion of the breast are pale cinereous, each feather being 
margined with whitish: the lower part of the back, the rump, 
and upper tail-feathers are white, beautifully and closely 
fasciated with black: the breast, belly, and thighs are white, 
the sides being spotted and waved with blackish: the lower 
tail-coverts are white with short black bands, narrower than 
those of the upper parts. The wings are six inches long: the 
lesser wing-coverts of the colour of the body, but they are 
margined with whitish ; the middle and greater wing-coverts 
are darker, with pure white margins and a little white along 
the shafts: the primaries are plain blackish dusky, the mner 
one slightly edged with white: the secondaries are broadly 
margined and narrowly shafted with white: the first quill is 
longest, the shaft white: the under wing-coverts and long 
axillary feathers are white, fasciated with black. The tail 
