CEDICNEMUS SCOLOPAX. 
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of olive-brown mixed up with lighter streaks and strokes of a brownish straw-colour overlying smaller marks 
of bluish grey. In some the markings are much more linear than in others, and are collected round the centre 
of the egg. Some examples in the series before me measure E96 by 1-48 inch ; 2' 23 by 1-47 ; 2'Oi by 1-48. 
Mr. Hume, writing of an Indian series, says that they are smaller than English specimens ; he finds the 
ground-colour invariably yellowish white, buffy yellow, or pale buffy brown. One egg is greenish white, with 
only a few brown specks on it ; another is stone-colour, with enormous map-like blotches or clouds on the 
“ broad half.” In length they vary from 1’65 to 2'15 inches, and in breadth from l - 3 to 1'5 inch. 
Genus ESACUS. 
Bill stout and long, suddenly widened at the base ; culmen straight as far as a point exactly 
above the gonys, where it is gently recurved to the tip ; gonys deeply angulated and ascending ; 
gape angulated ; commissure straight from the gape-angle and then recurved. Nostrils linear, 
wide, and placed in a capacious depression. Wings long, pointed ; the 2nd quill the longest, and 
the 3rd longer than the 1st ; tertials exceeding the primaries. Tail rather short, of 12 feathers, 
round at the tip. Legs long ; tibia bare much above the knee, which is enlarged. Tarsus 
nearly twice as long as the middle toe, reticulate in front and behind ; toes stout, the basal 
membrane well developed ; hind toe wanting. 
Head and eye large. 
