Genus— L IMNOCINCLUS. 
Limnocinolus Gould, Handb. Birds Austr., Vol. 11., 
p. 254, 1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . Type L. acmninatus. 
Small Waders with short straight bills, long wings, short tails, short legs, 
but stout and long toes. 
The culmen is short, straight, and shghtly expanded at the tip, the groove 
in the upper mandible extending almost to the tip ; it is shorter than the 
metatarsus and about equal to the middle toe alone. 
The wings are long and pointed with the first primary longest. The 
tail is less than half the length of the wing, and is just twice the length of 
the metatarsus. It is strongly wedge-shaped. The metatarsus is short but 
stout, regularly scutellate in front and behind ; quite appreciably longer 
than the culmen, also than the middle toe and claw. The hind toe is 
comparatively short ; aU the toes are cleft to the base. 
When Gould wrote up his Handbook of the Birds of Austraha, he intro- 
duced the generic name Litrinocinclus without giving any reasons or generic 
diagnosis. He simply wrote (Vol. II., p. 254, 1865) : “ The two species of 
this genus range over many degrees of latitude, the Lirnnocinclus pectoralis 
of America being one of them, the following species the other. They, or at 
least the Austrahan bird, inhabit marshy districts and the borders of rivers, 
and run about among the grass and herbage much after the manner of the 
true Snipes. Of their nidification little or nothing has yet been recorded, 
and I would especially direct the attention of Austrahan ornithologists to this 
point so far as it regards the bird inhabiting their country.” 
254 
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