122 
YELLOW-SHANKS SNIPE. 
flock will generally make a circuit and alight repeatedly, until 
the greater part of them may be shot down.* 
Length of the Yellow-shanks ten inches, extent twenty; bill 
slender, straight, an inch and a half in length, and black; line 
over the eye, chin, belly and vent, white; breast and throat 
gray; general colour of the plumage above dusky brown olive, 
inclining to ash, thickly marked with small triangular spots of 
dull white; tail-coverts white; tail also white, handsomely barred 
with dark olive; wings plain dusky, the secondaries edged, and 
all the coverts edged and tipt, with white; shafts black; eye also 
black; legs and naked thighs long and yellow; outer toe united 
to the middle one by a slight membrane; claws a horn colour. 
The female can scarcely he distinguished from the male. 
Note. — Mr. Ord in his reprint gives the following more mi- 
nute description, of a female, shot on the twenty-second of April; 
‘‘length upwards of ten inches, breadth twenty inches; irides 
brown; bill slender, straight, an inch and a half in length, and 
black, mandibles of equal length, the upper bent downwards at 
the tip; throat, lower parts, thighs, and under tail-coverts, white 
— the last are generally marked on their exterior vanes with 
brown; those next to the tail barred with the same; lower part 
of the neck, with the breast, gray, the feathers streaked down 
their centres with dusky; head and back part of the neck black, 
the plumage edged with gray, in some specimens edged with 
brown ash, upper parts black, with oblong spots of white, in- 
termixed with pale brown feathers; rump brown, edged with 
white; upper tail-coverts white, barred with brown; the tail is 
composed of twelve feathers, -white, barred with ashy brown, the 
upper feathers, in some, gray brown, marked on their vanes, 
though not across, with brown and white; wings, when closed, 
extend somewhat beyond the tail; primaries and secondaries 
dusky; shaft of first primary whitish above, the rest of the shafts 
* These birds are very common, in the early part of May, on the muddy-flats 
of our rivers, particularly in the vicinity of Philadelphia, and are that period in 
good condition. 
