616 
SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — LI3IIC0LJE, 
surface of the ground. In the dried state, the soft skin shrinks tight like parchment to the 
hone, and becomes studded with small pits. The gape of the mouth is extremely short and 
narrow ; the toes are cleft ; the legs, neck, and wings are comparatively short, and the body is 
rather full. There are no obvious seasonal or sexual differences in plumage. Not completely 
gregarious ; no such flights of woodcock and true snipe occur as are usually witnessed among 
sandpipers and bay- snipe ; they inhabit the bog and brake rather than the open waterside : 
they cannot be treacherously massacred by scores, like some of their relatives ; they are know- 
ing birds, if their brains are upset, and their successful pursuit calls into action all the better 
qualities of the true sportsman. There is but one species of Philohela ; two or three of 
Scolopax, and about twenty of Gallinago. The curious circumstance occurs, among the 
latter, that the tail-feathers range from 12 to 26 in different species ; and in those with the 
higher numbers, several pairs are narrow and linear — a character upon which the genus 
Fig. 432. — American Woodcock, about | nat. size. (From American Field.) 
Spilura rests. — The singular genus Bhynchcea, with two species, B. capensis (Africa) 
and B. semicoUaris (S. America), may belong here. —Macrorhamphus, containing only our 
species, and one other, M. semipalmatus of the Old World, has a bill exactly as in Gallinago, 
but is distinguished by more pointed wings, and differently proportioned legs, with basal web- 
bing of the toes. It stands exactly between the true snipe and 
h. The Godwits (Lvnosa), in which we find the same very long, wholly grooved, and 
extremely sensitive bill, which, however, is not dilated at the end, nor furrowed on the culmen, 
and is bent slightly upward ; the gape, as before, is exceedingly constricted. The toes show 
a basal web. These are rather large birds, with the colors and general aspect of curlews, 
but the bill is not decurved and the tarsi are scutellate behind. They frequent marshes, bays 
and estuaries, and are among the miscellaneous assortment of birds that are collectively 
designated ''bay-snipe." There are only five or six species, of the single genus Limosa. 
