RED-BREASTED SNIPE. 
337 
RED-BREASTED SNIPE.— SCOLOPAX NOVEBORACENSIS. 
Plate LVIII. Fig. I. 
Arct. Zool. p. 464, No. 368. — Peale's Museum, No. 3932. 
MACRORHAMPUS GR1SEUS Leach.* 
Macrorhampus griseus, Steph. Cont. Shaw's Zool. vol. xii. p. 61. — Scolopax grisea, 
Flem. Br. Zool. p. 106 Bonap. Cat. p. 27 — Le becassine grise, Scolopax 
leucopbcea, Vieill. Gal. des Ois. pi. 241. — Limosa scolopacea, Say's Exped. to 
Rocky Mount, i. p. 170, 171, note. — Brown Snipe, Mont. Orn. Diet Becassine 
ponctuee, Temm. Man. ii. p. 679 Brown Snipe, Selby's Illust. Br. Orn. pi. 
24, fig. 2. 
This bird has a considerable resemblance to the common 
Snipe, not only in its general form, size, and colours, but 
likewise in the excellence of its flesh, which is in high esti- 
mation. It differs, however, greatly from the common Snipe 
* This bird will stand in the rank of a sub-genus. It was first indicated 
by Leach, in the Catalogue to the British Museum, under the above title. It is 
one of those beautifully connecting forms, which it is impossible to place with- 
out giving a situation to themselves, and intimately connects the Snipes with 
Totanus and Limosa. The bill is truly that of Scolopax, while the plumage 
and changes ally it to the other genera ; from these blending characters it 
had been termed Limosa scolopacea, by Say, who gave the characters of the 
form without applying the name. He has the following observations in the 
work above quoted : — 
“ Several specimens were shot in a pond near the Bowyer creek. Corresponds 
with the genus Scolopax, Cuvier, in having the dorsal grooves at the tip of the 
upper mandible, and in having this part dilated and rugose ; but the eye is not 
large, nor is it placed far back upon the head ; which two latter characters, 
combined with its more elevated and slender figure, and the circumstance of 
the thighs being denudated of feathers high above the knee, and the exterior 
toe being united to the middle toe by a membrane which extends as far as the 
first joint, and the toes being also margined, combine to distinguish this species 
from those of the genus to which the form and characters of its bill would 
refer it, and approach it more closely to Limosa. In one specimen, the two 
exterior primaries on each wing were light brown, but the quills were white. 
It may, perhaps, with propriety, be considered as the type of a new genus ; 
and, under the following characters, be placed between the genera Scolopax 
and Limosa. Bill, longer than the head, dilated, and rugose at tip, slightly 
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