SCOLOPACHLE — THE SNIPE FAMILY — BARTRAMIA. 
295 
Montagu kept several of these birds in confinement a number of years. In this 
condition the males took no other notice of the females than to drive them from the 
food ; invariably quarrelling with each other, but taking no notice of other species, 
and feeding in perfect amity out of the same dish with Land-Rails and other birds 
confined with them. 
When the Eheeves, as the females are called, begin to lay, both they and the Ruffs 
are least shy, and are easily caught. The females lay their eggs during the first 
or second week in May, and their young are sometimes hatched out as early as June 
3. The nest is usually placed on a slight elevation in moist, swampy places, sur- 
rounded by coarse grass, of which material it is chiefly made. The eggs are four in 
number, have an olive ground-color, and are marked with spots and blotches of umber 
and liver-brown. They are of an oblong pyriform shape, and measure 1.60 inches in 
length by 1.09 inches in their greatest breadth. The young, which are prettily 
spotted when covered with down, soon leave the nest, and are difficult to find without 
a good dog. 
Genus BARTRAMIA, Lesson. 
Bartramia, Lesson, Traite d'Orn. 1831, 553 (type, B. laticauda, Less., = Tringa longicauda, 
Bechst. ). 
Actidurus, Bonai\ Saggio, etc., 1831, 143 (type, Tringa Bartramia, Wils., = Tringa longicauda 
Bechst. ). 
Euliga, Nutt. Man. II. 1834 (same type). 
Char. Upper mandible grooved laterally to within the terminal fourth, the lower not quite 
so far. Culmen concave to near the tip, where it is slightly decurved ; gonys straight. Mouth 
deeply cleft, almost as far back as the anterior canthus. The culmen only about two thirds the 
commissure, shorter than the head or tarsus, and about equal to middle toe without claw. Feath- 
B. longicauda. 
ers extending much farther forward on the upper jaw than on the lower, although those of chin 
reach nearly to end of nostrils. Tarsus one and one half times middle toe and claw ; the bare 
part of tibia not quite equal to the middle toe above ; outer toe united at base as far as first joint ; 
web of inner toe very basal. Tail long, graduated, more than half the wings. 
