462 SCHINZ’S SANDPIPER. 
from the base: the crown, neck above, and interscapulary 
region are of an ashy brown, much darker in the centre of 
each feather and lighter on their margins ; on the lower por- 
tion of their back this darker colour widening, predominates, 
and becomes black, so that the tips of the feathers only are of 
the general pale ashy colour; the upper tail-coverts are white, 
blackish along the shaft and towards the margin of the outer 
vane: a whitish stripe runs from the very origin of the bill 
over each eye; the cheeks, sides of the neck, and breast are 
whitish streaked with ashy dusky along the shaft of the 
feathers, giving these parts an obscurely lineated appearance ; 
the throat quite to the bill, and all the remaining under parts 
are white, the bottom of the plumage being plumbeous, and a 
few bands of that colour appearing across the lower flank- 
feathers. ‘The wings are four inches and a quarter long, with 
the tertials and scapularies remarkably tapering and acuminate, 
shorter by a good inch than the two first quill-feathers: all 
the wing-coverts are of the colour of the body, but a little 
darker, each having a pale grey margin, the inner great 
coverts have a very pure white tip: the shafts of all the quill- 
feathers are pure white, at least for a good portion near the 
centre: the primaries are blackish ash: the secondaries paler 
and margined with whitish, the tertials are again blackish 
edged with pale greyish: the under surface of the wing is of 
a silvery grey; the under wing-coverts white, marked with 
dusky. The tail is two and a quarter inches long: the four 
lateral feathers each side are very nearly equal in length, of 
a pale ash colour, margined and shafted with white: they 
become gradually darker as they are nearer the centre; the 
fifth each side is blackish ash, a trifle longer than those already 
described, and has a very conspicuous pure white marginal 
tip on the inner web ; the two middle surpass the others by a 
quarter of an inch, are somewhat pointed, and entirely blackish. 
The feet are blackish ; the naked space above the heel half an 
inch; the tarsus seven-eighths of an inch long, and mucli 
longer than the middle toe, the toes are cleft to the base; the 
