380 



PIGMY CURLEW. 



coverts white ; the feathers of the tail pale cinereous brown, with the 

 shafts and the extremities margined with white ; legs dusky black." In 

 this specimen were observed the same signs of immaturity, the pale 

 margin to the feathers, many of which, on the breast and belly, still 

 retained the ferruginous colour, which in another month would have 

 been thrown off ; while that shot at Sandwich, described by Mr. Boys, 

 was without any ferruginous on those parts, and the head and neck 

 were rufous brown. That which is described in the general synopsis, 

 taken from a specimen shot in Holland, had the head, back, and coverts 

 of the wings, mixed with brown, ferruginous, and white : thus we have 

 three distinct gradations of plumage in this species, which approaches 

 so very nearly to the dunlin in one change of its plumage, that were it 

 not for some trifling variation, and a little difference in the bill and 

 legs, they might easily be confounded by a more than ordinary orni- 

 thologist. Indeed, so very nearly do these two birds approach each 

 other, that, although we have no doubt of their distinction, it may be 

 useful to particularise in what they essentially differ, in order that this 

 species may be identified, and prevent that confusion Avhich has pro- 

 bably so long existed, and lead to a more perfect knowledge of a bird 

 that may be only considered as rare from its obscurity, caused by its 

 great similarity to so plentiful a species as the dunlin. 



In the specimen from which the original description was taken, 

 and the figure given in Mr. Boys's History of Sandwich, the most 

 obvious distinction between it and the dunlin, as permanent charac- 

 ters, consists in the superior slenderness of the bill and the legs, as 

 well as in the length of the latter. A remarkable distinction is also 

 observable in the thigh, which in this is bare of feathers for half an inch 

 above the knee ; whereas in the dunlin, that part is clothed to very near 

 the knee-joint. The plumage of the head and neck is more inclined to 

 rufous-brown, and the breast is destitute of the dusky streaks on the 

 shafts of the feathers observable in the dunlin : the belly and sides are 

 not of that pure white, and are wholly destitute of those minute spots 

 so common on the sides of the dunlin : the feathers on the back and 

 scapulars of this specimen of pigmea are margined with rufous-white ; 

 but as these pale margins are frequent in young birds, and not in adults, 

 it may not be permanent : the lower part of the rump and coverts of 

 the tail are immaculate white : the tail is not so cuneiform as in the 

 dunlin, although the feathers are of a similar cinereous colour : in the 

 wings there is scarcely a distinction between the two birds in their 

 closed state. 



