THE BROAD-EILLEU SANUTIPERS. 
223 
est pitch. I went to the spot where I had marked the bird, 
put it up again, and again saw it, after a short low flight, 
drop suddenly into cover. Once more \t rose a few feet 
from where it had settled. I fired ! and in a minute had in 
my hand a true Jack-Snipe, the undoubted parent of the nest 
of eggs ! ... As usual, I took measures to let the whole 
party have a share in my gratification before I again gave the 
word to advance. In the course of the day and night I found 
three more nests and examined the birds of each. One allowed 
me to touch it with my hand before it rose, and another only 
got up when my foot was within six inches of it. I was never 
afterwards able to see a nest myself, though 1 beat through 
numbers of swamps ; several with eggs, mostly hard sat upon, 
were found by people cutting hay in boggy places in July.” 
Eggs. — Four in number, and pear-shaped. The colour varies 
very much in the same way as in the eggs of the Common 
Snipe, but the reddish-brown spotting is more frequent, and I 
have not seen any of a pale stone-grey colour. Axis, 1-45-1 7 
inch; diam., I'os-i'i. 
THE BROAD-BILLED SANDPIPERS. GENUS LIMICOLA. 
Limicola, Koch, Syst. baier. Zool. p. 316 (1816). 
'Type, L. platyrhyncha (Temm.). 
The single species representing this genus has much of a 
Snipe in its general aspect, but is, in reality, a Sandpiper, 
allied to the Dunlins and the Curlew Sandpiper. Like the 
latter it has the eye placed in the side of the head like a 
Dunlin, and not like a Wood-cock or a Snipe. The bill is 
broad and flat and tapers loan awl-shaped point, but is slightly 
curved downwards at the tip. It is of considerable length, 
and is longer than the tarsus. 
I. THE BRO.\D-BILLED .S.ANDPIPER. LIMICOLA 
PLATYRHYNCHA. 
Tringa platyrhyncha, Temm. Man. d’Orn. p. 398 (1815); 
Macgill. Brit. B. iv. p. 224 (1852); Seebohm, Hist. Brit. 
B. iii. p. 197 (1885) 
