304 
allen’s naturalist’s library. 
crown of head uniform, like the back, or only slightly streaked 
with blackish ; lores dusky-blackish, surmounted by a broad 
streak of white ; eyelid white ; sides of face and ear-coverts 
brown. Streaked with white ; cheeks, throat, and under surface 
of body white, the throat with hair-like blackish streaks ; sides 
of neck, fore-neck, and chest ashy-brown, with whitish vermi- 
culations, or whitish mottled with ashy-brown; breast and ab- 
domen pure white, freckled with bars and vermiculations of 
ashy-brown On the sides of body and flanks ; thighs and under 
tail-coverts white, the latter with a few bars of blackish; under 
wing-coverts white, barred with sub-marginal markings of black- 
ish; axillaries white, with dusky bars, not very perfect, of brown ; 
lower primary-coverts and quills below ashy, the former with 
whitish bars near the end. Total length, 9 inches ; culmen, 
I '45 ; wing, 67 ; tail, 2-3 ; tarsus, 2. 
Adult Female. — Similar to the male. Total length, 9'S inches; 
culmen, i-6 ; wing, 6-5 ; tail, 2-2; tarsus, 2-25. 
Adult Male in Breeding Plumage. — Differs from the winter 
plumage in being mottled with black, the centres to the 
feathers being black ; median and greater wing-coyerts being 
more or less conspicuously barred and notched with black ; 
centre tail-feathers ashy-brown, barred with black, the lateral 
ones white with less complete blackish bars ; head black, 
streaked with white; under surface of body white, with 
blackish streaks on the sides of the face, throat, and breast, 
the latter broader and more arrow-shaped; the sides of the 
breast distinctly barred with black ; axillaries with only a few 
blackish bars; bill black; feet bright yellow ; iris dark brown, 
Total length, 9 inches; culmen, 1-4; wing, 6-4; tail, 2'45 ; 
tarsus, I ‘9. 
Young after First Moult.— Much more mottled than the winter 
plumage of the adult, which it otherwise resembles ; all the 
feathers having spots or notches of brownish-white on the mar- 
gins ■ the throat and chest minutely streaked with ashy-brown, 
and the sides of the breast mottled with larger spots of ashy- 
brown ; axillaries almost entirely white, with scarcely any evi- 
dences of dusky bars. 
Characters.— The Yellow-shank is distinguished from both of 
the Red-shanks by having the lower back and rump dusky* 
