LONG-LEGGED SANDPIPER. 
271 
a broad band from the mandible over the eye, the fore part of the neck, and 
the rest of the lower parts white. Quills and tail as in the adult, but lighter. 
Length to end of tail 71 inches ; extent of wings 14£. Weight If oz. 
LONG-LEGGED SANDPIPER. 
Tringa Himantopus, Bonap. 
PLATE COCSXXIY. — Adult in Spuing and Winter. 
\ 
I have often spoken of the great differences as to size and colour that are 
observed in birds of the same species, and which have frequently given rise 
to mistakes, insomuch, that the male, the female, and the young, have been 
considered as so many distinct species. The Long-legged Sandpiper has 
been treated in this manner, and has latterly reappeared under the name of 
Tringa Douglassii, in the Fauna Boreali- Americana of my friends Richard- 
son and Swainson. Bonaparte was, in truth, the first who described this 
bird ; and although some differences might be found between his specimen 
and the one described in the work just mentioned, they are trifling compared 
with those which I have observed between seven or eight individuals all 
procured from the same flock at a single shot. It is strange that neither 
Bonaparte nor Swainson have mentioned the sex of their specimen. 
On the morning of the 4th of April, 1887, while seated among the drift 
wood that had accumulated on the southern shore of the island of Barataria, 
forty miles from the south-west pass of the Mississippi, and occupied in 
observing some Pelicans, I saw a flock of about thirty Long-legged Sand- 
pipers alight within ten steps of me, near the water. They immediately 
scattered, following the margin of the retiring and advancing waves, in 
search of food, which I could see them procure by probing the wet sand in 
the manner of Curlews, that is, to the full length of their bill, holding it for 
a short time in the sand, as if engaged in sucking up what they found. In 
this way they continued feeding on an extended line of shore of about thirty 
yards, and it was pleasing to see the alacrity with which they simultaneously 
advanced and retreated, according to the motions of the water. In about 
three quarters of an hour, during all which time I had watched them with 
attention, they removed a few yards beyond the highest wash of the waves. 
