TELL-TALE GODWIT, OR SNIPE. 
119 
Bay, continually nodding their heads; and were called there 
Stone Curlews.* 
The Tell-tale seldom flies in large flocks, at least during 
summer. It delights in watery bogs, and the muddy margins 
of creeks and inlets; is either seen searching about for food, or 
standing in a watchful posture, alternately raising and lowering 
the head, and on the least appearance of danger utters its shrill 
whistle, and mounts on wing, generally accompanied by all the 
feathered tribes that are near. It occasionally penetrates inland, 
along the muddy shores of our large rivers, seldom higher than 
tide water, and then singly and solitary. They sometimes rise 
to a great height in the air, and can be distinctly heard when 
beyond the reach of the eye. In the Fall, when they are fat, 
their flesh is highly esteemed, and many of them are brought 
to our markets. The colours and markings of this bird are so 
like those of the preceding, that unless in point of size, and the 
particular curvature of the bill, the description of one might 
serve for both. 
The Tell-tale is fourteen inches and a half long, and twenty- 
five inches in extent; the bill is two inches and a quarter long, 
of a dark horn colour, and slightly bent upwards; the space 
round the eye, chin and throat, pure white; lower part of the 
neck pale ashy white, speckled with black; general colour of the 
upper parts an ashy brown, thickly spotted with black and dull 
white, each feather being bordered and spotted on the edge 
with black; wing quills black; some of the primaries, and all of 
the secondaries, with their coverts, spotted round the margins 
with black and white; head and neck above streaked with black 
and white; belly and vent pure white; rump white, dotted with 
black; tail also white, barred with brown; the wings, when 
closed, reach beyond the tail; thighs naked nearly two inches 
above the knees; legs two inches and three quarters long; feet 
four-toed, the outer joined by a membrane to the middle, the 
whole of a rich orange yellow. The female differs little in plu- 
Arct. Zool. p. 468. 
