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COMMON TOTANUS. 
Islands, Japan,* and Java.f Mr. Jerdan states 
it to bo “ found solitary in similar situations with 
the last ( T . ochropus), but not nearly so common.” 
We possess specimens from Southern Africa, Con- 
tinental India, and Singapore. 
The bill is greenish-brown, paler and inclining 
to yellow at the base and rictus. The upper parts of 
the adult bird in the breeding state are hair-brown, 
with a glossy lustre and greenish reflections, the 
shaft of each feather appearing dark, and showing 
on the wings, and sometimes on the back, narrow 
transverse lines of a deeper brown. The throat, 
chin, belly and vent, white, on the former with 
minute spots of hair-brown ; the neck and breast 
are greyish-w r hite, streaked with hair-brown ; axil- 
lary feathers white. In the tail, the centre feathers 
are hair-brown ; the next pair show clouded bands 
across, and aro pale at the tips, whilo those on the 
outside become more and more distinctly barred 
with white and hair-brown ; in this they show a 
difference from the same parts in the Spotted 
Sandpiper, where the outer feathers, though barred, 
are much more clouded, the outer feathers only 
showing bars defined in the marking ; the tail, in 
the Common Sandpiper, is also slightly longer and 
more cuneated. In the young and winter plu- 
mage, the wings and upper parts aro considerably 
broken up by dark bars near the tips of the fea- 
thers, which are paler in some parts, inclining to 
greyish-white. 
* Temminck. + Horsfield. 
