v! » 
54 
RED-BREASTED SNIPE. 
Vieillot and Savi, consider Rusticola a true genus, leaving the name 
of Scolopax to the rest. Macroramphus and Scolopax are in fact 
more closely related than is Rusticola to any of them. 
All the species of our genus Scolopax are very similar as to the 
bill, which in all is long, slender, straight, compressed, especially 
at base, where it is elevated, soft and flexible its whole length, 
with the point depressed, dilated, tumid and obtuse: owing to the 
desiccation of the delicate nervous apparatus of this part, it 
becomes wrinkled after death, exhibiting at the point a dorsal 
groove and numerous indentations. Both mandibles are furrowed 
to the middle on each side; the upper, serrated inside along the 
palate with spinelike processes pointing backwards, is terminated 
by an internal knob; the lower being shorter, channelled, and 
somewhat truncated: the nostrils are in the furrows, basal, 
marginal, linear and pervious, but half closed by a membrane. 
The tongue is moderate, filiform and acute. The head is in all 
large, compressed, and angular, low forward and high behind : 
the eyes are very large, placed high and far back, but perhaps 
less so in the bird which is more immediately the subject of our 
remarks : the neck is of moderate length, and stout; the body 
compressed and very fleshy. 
But if they have all these traits in common, the feet, tail, and 
wings present material differences. The feet are in all, it is true, 
moderately long, slender, and four-toed, there being to this no 
exception as in the Tringx. But in Rusticola there is no naked 
space on the tibia, whilst it exists, though small, in Scolopax , and 
is considerable in the present subgenus. In this the tarsus is 
much longer than the middle toe, while in the true Snipes it is 
subequal, and in the Woodcocks decidedly shorter. In the pre- 
sent the outer toe is connected to the first joint with the middle 
by a membrane, whilst in the two others all the toes are cleft: in 
this and Scolopax the hind nail is falculate and acute, as well as 
ti, -if ; 
» 4 
■ 
V 
