82 
TOTANUS SEMIPALMATUS. 
worms, and other aquatic insects ; in search of which, 
it regularly resorts to the muddy shores and flats at 
low water; its general rendezvous being the marshes. 
This bird has a summer and also a winter dress, its 
colours differing so much in these seasons as scarcely 
to appear to be the same species. Its spring and 
summer plumage, in a good specimen, is as follows : — - 
Length, fifteen inches ; extent, thirty inches ; upper 
parts, dark olive brown ; the feathers, streaked down 
the centre, and crossed with waving lines of black ; 
wing-coverts, light olive ash, and the whole upper 
parts sprinkled with touches of dull yellowish white ; 
primaries, black, white at the root half; secondaries, 
white, bordered with brown ; rump, dark brown ; tail, 
rounded, twelve feathers, pale olive, waved with bars 
of black ; tail-coverts, white, barred with olive ; hill, 
pale lead colour, becoming black towards the tip ; eye, 
very black ; chin, white ; breast, beautifully mottled 
with transverse spots of olive on a cream ground; 
belly and vent, white,' the last barred with olive ; legs 
and feet, pale lead colour ; toes, half webbed. 
Towards the fall, when these birds associate in large 
flocks, they become of a pale dun colour above, the 
plumage being shafted with dark brown, and the tail 
white, or nearly so. At this season they are extremely 
fat, and esteemed excellent eating. Experienced 
gunners always select the lightest coloured ones from 
a flock, as being uniformly the fattest. 
The female of this species is generally larger than 
the male. In the months of October and November, 
they gradually disappear. 
