102 
LITTLE DUNLIN. 
an inch long, very slender, and little bending down- 
wards, and rather larger near the point than at the 
middle : irides dusky : the forehead, crown of the 
head, back of the neck, back and scapulars dark 
cinereous, dusky down the shafts, except on the 
neck, which is rather lighter coloured than the rest : 
from the beak to the eye a dusky-brown streak ; 
above that an obscure dirty-white one : chin and 
throat white : fore part of the neck and upper breast 
pale cinereous brown : lower breast, belly, vent, and 
under tail-coverts pure white : primaries, secondaries, 
and the greater coverts immediately impending them, 
dusky, very slightly tipped with white, most so on 
the coverts, and the primaries margined with white 
on the outer webs, except the two first : the shaft 
of the first quill is white, the others dusky-brown : 
spurious wing and smaller coverts near it dusky ; 
those along the ridge of the wing dusky and cine- 
reous ; the rest of the coverts and tertials cinereous, 
like the back ; a few of the former edged with pale 
rufous-brown : the rump and upper tail-coverts 
dusky, the feathers slightly tipped with cinereous : 
the tail is cuneiform, composed of twelve feathers ; 
the six middle ones are cinereous, the two middle- 
most inclining to dusky ; the three outer feathers on 
each side pure white : legs light olive-brown, three 
quarters of an inch long : claws black." He also 
describes what appears to be the young bird, previous 
to its first moulting. " It is," he says, " the size 
of the above : the beak and irides the same : the 
forehead and cheeks round the eyes very pale, nearly 
white : throat and all beneath white, except across 
