or little-known Limicolse. 
243 
shoulders, wings, tail, and upper tail-coverts brownish black; 
the greater wing-coverts and primaries with greenish black 
reflections, but without any white.” 
On reading this description, it seemed just possible that 
the bird in question might be immature; and as I remembered 
to have noticed in other species, and in some species of the 
allied genus Himantopus, that the tail-feathers are, for the 
most part, grey in the young, but become pure white in the 
adult, a careful comparison was necessary before any satis¬ 
factory conclusion could be arrived at. 
The result of this comparison has satisfied me that the 
bird described by Herren Philippi and Landbeck must be re¬ 
garded as a valid and highly interesting species. 
The genus Recurvirostra is a very restricted one ; and it is 
not difficult, therefore, to point out the distinguishing cha¬ 
racters of the four species of which it is composed, and show 
in what respects R. andina differs from its congeners. 
Recurvirostra avocetta , which is the most widely distributed 
of all (being found, as I shall presently show, throughout the 
greater part of Europe, Asia, and Africa), is at once to be 
distinguished by its black crown and nape, present at all sea¬ 
sons, in young as well as in old birds, although of a paler or 
browner hue in the case of the former. This peculiarity is 
shared by no other species of Avocet. In the distribution of 
colour about the back and wings it resembles the New-World 
species, R. americana; that is to say, the scapulars, wing- 
coverts, and primaries are black, while the interscapulars 
and secondaries are pure white. The closed wing has thus 
the appearance of being crossed by two very conspicuous 
white bars. This distribution of colour is indicated at a very 
early age, even in the young bird incapable of flight, the parts 
which in the adult are black being in the young of a mealy 
brown hue. The tail and tail-coverts are at all seasons 
white. 
From this species R. andina differs in having a white head, 
an absence of white upon the wing, and the tail and tail- 
coverts brownish black. 
In R. americana the crown and nape are never at any season 
