3o6 
Allen’s naturalist’s library. 
the end of both mandibles, which are pitted. The female has 
a longer bill than the male. 
Two species of Macrorhamphus are recognised, one being 
North American and the other inhabiting Eastern Siberia. It 
is the former which has visited Great Britain on several occa- 
sions. 
I. THE RED-BREASTED SNIPE-TATTLER. 
GRISEUS. 
MACRORHAMPHUS 
Scolopax grisea, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 658 (1788). / 
Macrorhamphus griseus, Macgill. Bnt. B. iv. P- ^75 
Dresser, B. Eur. viii. p. 187, pi. 57 1 
List Brit. B. p. 177 (1883) ; Saunders, ed. Yarrells Bnt. 
B. iii. p. 357 (1883); id. Man. Bnt. B. p. 561 (1889), 
Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 394 (1896). 
Ereu?ietes griseus, Seebohm, Hist. Bnt. B. 111. p. 168 (1885). 
Adult Male in Breeding Plumage. — General colour above very 
dark, the feathers being black, with pale cinnamon or buffy- 
white spots on either web of the feathers, the scapulars barred 
with rufous or buffy- white like the long innennost secondaries ; 
wing-coverts like the back, with white tips to the greater senes, 
the coverts uniform brown where the rufous spotting of the sum- 
mlr plumage has not commenced; bastard-wing, primary- 
coverts, and quills blackish, the latter with brown shafts, except 
the first one, which has a white shaft ; the inner primary- 
coverts and inner primaries tipped with white, the latter with a 
whity-brown longitudinal streak along the terminal region of 
the shaft ; the secondaries margined with white externally and 
round the tip, with a white shaft-streak also ; the '^nermost 
secondaries like the back; lower back and ramp ''’h'te, the 
latter with black spots or horseshoe-shaped bars ; the upper 
tail-coverts and centre tail-feathers white, washed with rufous, 
and barred across with dusky black, the former with a sub-ter- 
minal black spot as well; remainder of the tail-feathers Wackisli- 
brown, barred with white, these bars narrower than the dusky 
ones and somewhat irregular in shape; crown of head nearly 
uniform blackish, except for a few spots of pale cinnamon, the 
hinder-neck streaked with the latter colour and dusky blackish ; 
a broad eyebrow of sandy-buff ; sides of the face of the same 
