LIMICOLA PLATYEIIYNCHA. 
899 
and more carefully lined. Tlie old bird sits so closely that she never gets off until your foot is nearly upon 
herd 5 The eggs are laid from about the middle of May until the middle of June. They were beautifully figured 
some years ago by Mr. Hewitson, and are very remarkable, inasmuch as some are of a type quite abnormal 
for a Wader. These have the appearance at a distance of almost uniform chocolate-brown ; they are of a 
yellowish-stone ground, but so thickly stippled with chocolate-brown that the surface is almost completely 
covered with this colour. Others are of a dusky yellow ground, more openly stippled and speckled with 
chocolate-brown, intermixed with a few streaks of black, and are scarcely less dark in character than the first- 
named. Some, again, are olivaceous stone, spotted numerously with dark clear brown (lighter in some than 
in others), under which are bluish-grey spots. Others, again, are greyish stone-colour, handsomely blotched 
throughout with irregular and broken markings of dark sepia over spots of bluish grey and clouds ol light 
greyish brown, and intermingled with streaks or scratches of blackish brown. Two eggs in the fine series 
before me, taken in Lapland, and in the possession of Mr. Dresser, are of the chocolate type, with bolder 
markings round the large end than in the first-mentioned. Examples measure l - 23 by O' 9.2 inch, 1'23 by 0'87, 
and 1'34 by 0'88. 
Genus STEEPSILAS*. 
Bill rather short, conical, wide at the base ; the tip acute and the culmen flattened at the 
base, and slightly upturned from the nostril to the tip ; nostrils linear, placed in a depression ; 
gonys pronounced. Wings long and pointed ; the 1st quill the longest. Tail moderately short, 
cuneate, of 12 feathers. Legs rather short ; the tarsus protected with transverse scutes, and not 
longer than middle toe with its claw. Toes divided to the base, but bordered by a narrow 
membrane ; outer toe scarcely longer than the inner ; hind toe well developed ; nails straight. 
* I place this remarkable genus among the Scolopacidse, of which it appears to be an aberrant form, resembling the 
Stints in its deportment, actions, and many of its habits, but differing from them in the peculiar structure of its bill, and 
partly in its mode of feeding. Its change of plumage in the breeding-season is somewhat analogous to that of the Tringce, 
and its egg is purely Scolopacine. It has been ei'roneously placed by many in the family of Sea- Plovers (Hannatopodkhe), 
owing to the structure of its bill ; but this organ is most variable and perplexing both in the Scolopacidse and Chara- 
cl ri i cite, and consequently unsafe as a basis of classification ; and the bird has nothing whatever in common with the 
Oyster-catchers. 
