SCOLOPACro/E. 
16!) 
exposed openings which occasionally prevail ; many 
of them are much esteemed for the table, and by the 
sportsman. The plumage of all is coloured with 
chaste and subdued tints, and is often remarkable 
for the purity and distinctness of its markings. The 
young run immediately on being hatched. Several 
of the genera feed and perform their migrations by 
night, these have the eye proportionally large, and 
much developed. The bill is often furnished, at its 
tip, with a structure of high sensibility, by which it 
can discriminate by the sense, of touch, the insects, 
&c., with which it comes in contact. 
The first form we notice, is that of the Wood- 
cocks or Snipes, which we shall here keep together, 
though, by several intelligent ornithologists, they 
have been separated, partly on account of the more 
sylvan habits of the former, and partly from a 
slight difference in the feathering of the tarsi, or in 
the one set of birds being formed for a wading or 
more aquatic life than the other. Without doubt, 
the three known species of Woodcocks, all sylvan in 
their habits, could at once he separated by any one 
from the Snipes ; but, at the same time, we have 
one or two intermediate birds which could not, 
assuming the distinctions we have stated as charac- 
ters, be placed in either. 
Genus Scolopax, Linn. — Generic characters . — 
Bill lengthened, straight, basally compressed, 
slightly curved at the tip, and there dilated ; 
the tip of the maxilla fitting into that of the 
