688 



APPENDIX. 



[No. V. 



inch in length ; this, if not arising from difference of season, is difficult to account for. 

 The largest, which it is proposed to describe, measures twelve inches from the tip of 

 the bill to the end of the tail ; the bill is two inches and a quarter long ; both man- 

 dibles channelled from the base, compressed in the middle, and flattened at the end ; 

 the throat, neck, and belly are tinged with ochreous or buff, the throat is palest; 

 the neck minutely spotted with brown, and the belly free from markings ; the cheeks 

 are pale, like the throat ; across them, from the upper mandible to the eye, there 

 passes a dark line ; the top of the head is dark brown spotted with ferruginous ; the 

 back of the neck mottled dark and light brown ; the feathers, on the back and 

 scapulars, are black, edged with bright ferruginous ; the feathers of the wing-coverts 

 are dark brown, edged with pale brown; the primaries are very dark, the shaft of 

 the first alone being white ; the secondaries are edged with white ; the whole back 

 from underneath the scapulars, the sides, and the under wing-coverts, are spotted 

 and barred with black or white, forming a beautiful contrast to the black and 

 ferruginous markings of the upper parts ; the tail is pointed, and the markings of 

 black are continued without interruption from the back to its extremity ; but as they 

 extend along the tail they gradually change their first character of spots, and become 

 more and more distinctly black bands ; the tips of the longest tail-feathers are 

 ferruginous ; the legs are bare an inch above the knee ; the tarse measures an inch 

 and a half ; the three fore toes are long and slender, the hind toe is very thin, and 

 about a quarter of an inch long ; the legs are dark green. 



Totanus Flavipes. Yellow-legged Godwit. 



This bird, commonly known in the United States as the Yellow Shanks, is also 

 stigmatized by the sportsmen of that country as the Lesser Tell-tale, it being nearly 

 as troublesome to them in their pursuit as the Totanus Vociferus. The descriptions 

 of this species, in Wilson, as well as in Latham and Pennant, having been made 

 from autumnal specimens, do not well agree with the plumage of the specimen 

 now before us, which appears to be in its perfect summer dress. It measures nine 

 inches and a half in length ; the bill is straight, and about an inch and a quarter 

 long ; the upper mandible is grooved, and a little arched at its extremity ; the chin, 

 neck, and breast are dingy white, marked with longitudinal stripes of dark ash 

 colour ; the head and back of the Beck dark brown, a little spotted with white ; the 

 whole back, wing-coverts, and scapulars brown, spotted with light reddish brown, 

 the spots being ranged along the margins of each feather; the wing feathers are 

 dark brown, the shaft of the first primary being white ; the smaller primaries are 

 slightly edged with white, and the secondaries more strongly so; the upper tail- 

 coverts are white; the belly, sides, thighs, and abdomen dingy white; the under 

 tail-coverts white, slightly barred with brown ; the tail feathers brown barred with 



