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1837
ARTES
SCIENTIA
LIBRARY VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
E.PLURIBUS-UNUM
TUEBDR
EST-QUAERIS-PENINSULAM AMOENAME
CIRCUMSPICE

Museums
QL
674
B71
v. 4



اور بابا اور

390
4-119
LIBRARY
AMERICAN
OT TIE
:
را
MIONGS
ORNITHOLOGY;
OR,
THE NATURAL HISTORY
OF
BIRDS INHABITING THE UNITED STATES,
NOT GIVEN BY WILSON.
WITH FIGURES DRAWN, ENGRAVED, AND COLOURED, FROM NATURE.
BY
CHARLES LUCIAN BONAPARTE.
VOL. IV.
PHILADELPHIA:
CAREY & LEA, CHESNUT STREET.
LONDON : JOHN MILLER, 40 PALL MALL.
WILLIAM BROWN, PRINTER.
1833.

“Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year 1833, by Carey & Lea, in the
Clerk's office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.”
FRANCIS HOPKINSON,
Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

INDEX
TO THE FOURTH VOLUME.
PAGE
1
Pic '93 - 9-н бага
118
128
23
82
.
89
96
Condor
Esquimaux Curlew
Florida Gallinule
Glossy Ibis .
Hyperborean Phalarope
Long-legged Sandpiper
Peale's Egret Heron
Pectoral Sandpiper
Piping Plover
Red-breasted Snipe
Schinz's Sandpiper
Scolopaceous Courlan
Semipalmated Plover, young ·
Wilson's Phalarope
Yellow-breasted Rail
Cathartes gryphus
Numenius borealis
Gallinula galeata
Ibis falcinellus
Phalaropus hyperboreus.
Tringa himantopus
Ardea pealii
Tringa pectoralis.
Charadrius melodus
Scolopax grisea
Tringa schinzi
Aramus scolopaceus
Charadrius semipalmatus
Phalaropus wilsonii
Rallus noveboracensis
43
74
51
69
111
92
e
59
136


C

Drawn from Nature by A.Rides.
Teung Male Conden
CathartesGruphus
.
Engravid by Alavender Lauven.
22

AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY.
CONDOR.
CATHARTES GRYPHUS.
Plate XXII. Young Male.
Vultur Gryphus, LINN. Syst. I, p. 121, Sp. 1. GMEL. Syst. I, p. 245, Sp. 1. LATH.
.
.
Ind. Orn. I, p. 1, Sp. 1. Encycl. Brit. XVIII, p. 695, pl. 510. HUMBOLDT, Hist.
Nat. in Obs. Zool. I, p. 26, pl. 8, 9.
Vultur magellanicus, Lever. Mus. p. 1, pl. 1, Female.
Vultur condor, Daud. Orn. II, p. 8. Shaw, Zool. VII, p. 2, pl. 2, 3, 4.
Cathartes gryphus, TEMM. RANZANI. Nob. Cat. & Syn. Bds. U. S. Sp. 2.
Gypagus griffus, VIEILL. Enc. III, p. 1174. Id. Nouv. Dict.
Sarcoramphus Cuntur, DUMERIL. Sarcoramphus gryphus, GOLDFUSS, Nat. Atlas, pl.
107, adult Male.
Sarcoramphus condor, Less. Orn. I, pl. 7, adult Male.
Vultur Gryps Gryphus, KLEIN, Al. p. 45. Briss. Av. I, p. 473. Id. 8vo. p. 137.
BOROWSKY, Nat. II, p. 62.
Cuntur, LAET. Am. p. 401. Ray, Av. p. 11.
Catarte condoro, Ranz. Elem. VII, p. 24, Sp. 2, tab. XXII. fig. 2, adult Male.
Il Condoro, MOLINA, St. Nat. Chili, p. 223.
Manque, MOLINA, Chili, p. 236, (French edition.)
Condor, FREZIER, Voy. p. III. LA CONDAMINE, Voy. Amaz. p. 175. Briss. Orn. I,
p. 473, Sp. 12. Buff. Ois. I, p. 184. Id. (ed. 1770) I. p. 143, v. MARTINET,
Hist. Ois.
Le Condor, ou Grand Vautour des Andes, Cuv. Règn. An. I, p. 306. Id ed. 2, p. 316.
VOL. IV.-A

2
CONDOR.
Catharte Condor, TEMM. & Laug. pl. col. 133, adult Male, 494, head of the adult living
Male, 408, young Female.
Condur Vulture, LATH. Syn. p. 4. Id. Suppl. p. 1. Id. Suppl. II, p. 1, pl. CXX. ID.
Gen. Hist. I, p. 4, pl. 1, adult Male. HAWKESW. Voy. I, p. 75. Wood's Zoography,
I, p. 371. STEVENSON, Voy. Am. II. p. 59.
Der Condor Geier, of German authors.
Cabinet of the Academy of Natural Sciences.
To such a degree has its history been exaggerated by fable,
that the mention of the Condor immediately recalls to mind the
Roc, of Marco Polo and the Arabian Tales. Some authors have
indeed referred this name to it, and even go so far as to make it
the subject of one of the labours of Hercules, the destruction of
the Stymphalian birds. Such in fact were the stories related by
the early travellers, that even when reduced to what in the
judgment of Buffon was their real value, it cannot but now appear
unaccountable that they should ever have found credence, and
still more so that compilers should have gone on accumulating
under the Condor's history not merely the tales told of it, but
others collected from every quarter of the globe, however remote
or different in climate, not hesitating to give currency to the most
revolting absurdities. The accounts of Father Feuillée, who was
the first describer, Frezier, and especially Hawkesworth's, appear
however to be tolerably correct; while the ardent imagination of
Garcilasso led him to indulge in the wildest extravagances in
relation to this bird. Abbeville and de Laet, no less than Acosta,
in his History of the Indies, ascribed to this cowardly Vulture the
strength, courage, and raptorial habits of an Eagle, and even in
a higher degree, thus doing him the honour to represent him as
formidable to every living creature, and the dreaded enemy of
man himself. Desmarchais improves if possible upon these stories,
,
giving the Condor still greater size and strength, and stating that

CONDOR.
3
it is well known to carry off in its prodigious talons a hind, or
even a heifer, with as much ease as an Eagle would a rabbit !
Such a creature could not of course dwell in forests, for how could
it among trees display its enormous wings? They were therefore
limited to savannahs and open grounds. Antonio de Solis,
Sloane in the Philosophical Transactions, and even the learned
la Condamine, who saw the bird himself, and certainly witnessed
no such exploits as had been related of it, indulged in wild
theories depending on popular tales and superstitions. The
obscurity created by so much misrepresentation could not however
conceal its true Vulture-like nature from the acuteness of Ray,
who pointed out its appropriate place in the system. His opinion
was adopted by Brisson and Linné, and it became among
naturalists generally a settled point, notwithstanding the elo-
quently expressed doubts of Buffon, who wanted rather on account
of its supposed great strength and agility to elevate the Condor
to the rank of an Eagle, these qualities not permitting him to
degrade it so low as the Vultures. But a still greater error of
the French Pliny, as he may be on every account so appositely
styled, was to consider the Condor as not peculiar to America,
but as a genuine cosmopolite, of which happily there were but
few, however, for otherwise the human race would not have
been able to stand against them. But it was only in its imaginary
character that the Condor of Buffon was truly cosmopolite, having
no other existence than what was based upon absurd and ridiculous
fictions gathered in all parts of the globe; for no living bird could
be placed in competition with one for whose powers of flight
distance was no impediment, and whose strength and swiftness
united would have rendered him lord of creation.
We should, however, make some allowance for the credulity of
our forefathers, in believing upon the reports of weak or lying
travellers all the romantic and extravagant tales related of this

4
CONDOR
wondrous Condor. They had not, as we have, the means of
personally ascertaining the sober truth. But it is almost incredi-
ble, and remarkably illustrates the force of preconceived opinions,
that in the year 1830, a traveller could be found with assurance
enough to impose upon us, and journals, even of respectable
standing, to copy as positive and authentic, a description of a
Condor of moderate size, just killed, and actually lying before the
narrator, so large that a single quill-feather was twenty good
paces long! This indeed might have lifted an Elephant, and it
is quite unfortunate that Peru and Chili should no longer produce
them for prey for such a bird, and that the Mastodon is now
extinct. So much for human credulity, which is often exercised
upon more serious occasions, with equal impudence and much
worse results.
As in so many other instances of power based upon prejudice,
or great reputation unjustly usurped, a near and close examination
has shown the falsity of these pretensions. The wonderful Condor
now proves to be nothing more than a rather large Vulture. The
same has happened, as Humboldt observes, with its countrymen,
the gigantic Patagonians, who are found at last not to exceed the
stature of ordinary men.
Notwithstanding the faithful accounts of a few of the older
authors, the true history of the Condor had remained involved in
the obscurity created by mingling it with so many childish tales,
when the celebrated Humboldt, studying it living with the sober
eye of truth and philosophy, furnished a correct description, a
good drawing, and an excellent memoir upon it. Since that time
several stuffed as well as living specimens have reached the
menageries and museums of the United States and Europe, which
with the three plates published by Temminck, have rendered it
familiar to all. It is but just, however, to mention that Latham
had, long before Humboldt, given in his second Supplement a

CONDOR
5
tolerably correct description of both sexes, with a figure of the
adult male, and taken also from the identical specimens, now at
Vienna, and originally brought to England by Captain Middleton
from the straits of Magellan, that furnished the subjects of
Temminck's plates.
The adults of both sexes, and a young female, having been
tolerably well represented, it is the young male that we have
preferred to figure in this work, in order thus to complete the
iconography of so interesting a species. And we trust that
through the exertions of our artists, our figure, which is reduced
three and a half times from nature, will be found for minuteness
of accuracy much superior to all, owing to the extraordinary pains
taken by Mr. Lawson, who besides being furnished with a
correct drawing, made repeated visits to the living bird, carefully
verifying its form and dimensions in all their details.
The genus Vultur of Linné, now the family Vulturini, (or
Vulturida) a family first established by Duméril under the appel-
lation of Ptilodères, or Nudicolles, though much less numerous
as well as less intricate in the characters of the species than
the Falconida, of which we have treated under the head of
Falco cooperii, has nevertheless much exercised the ingenuity of
ornithologists, who nearly all disagree both as to its limits and
its subdivisions.
With respect to the former, those recognized
by us will be clear and well defined, this family being constituted
of the two modern genera Vultur and Cathartes, of Illiger, which
we adopt with some modifications, as will be seen hereafter.
Contrary to the general practice, we discard from it the aberrant
genera forming the passage to other groups, in which we prefer
arranging them. The groups towards which a direct passage is
the most obvious are the family of Rapaces, or Falconidæ ; and
some typical Gallina and aberrant Waders. With neither the
Passeres nor the webfooted orders, (unless it may be with the
VOL. IV.-B

6
CONDOR.
S***
Frigate-Bird) do we perceive any immediate relations. The
passage to these takes place through the intervention of the three
other orders, in the first of which the genera Gypaëtus and
Gypogeranus approach so near them as even to have strong
claims to be included in the same family, being almost exactly
intermediate between Falconidæ and Vulturidæ.
Although the Vulturidæ are far from exhibiting the same
diversity of conformation, habits, and appetites, as the numerous
tribe of the Falcons, and form indeed as a whole a much more
compact mass, and much less numerous in species, yet even those
naturalists, with Illiger at their head, who have left untouched
the great genus Falco, have joined unanimously with the reformers
in dividing that of Vultur into two great equivalent genera. This
course, though we imitate it ourselves, we must confess to be more
expedient than consistent, and it is probable that for the very
reason that differential traits are less numerous and complicated
in the different species, that the divisions have been more easily
made and admitted. Let us analyze them. Illiger was the first
to separate the species into his two genera Cathartes and Vultur :
we say the first, excluding Storr and Lacépède, who long since
with so much reason withdrew Gypaetus from the genus, and
not adverting to the artificial section made by Duméril in the
year 1806, under the name of Sarcoramphus, for the stout-
billed carunculated species indiscriminately. The characters
assigned by Illiger were precise and natural, and the species he
cited as examples correctly typical. But Temminck in adopting
Illiger's two genera, misapplied the characters, and rendered them
unnatural by declaring the Vultur Percnopterus a Cathartes, whilst
it is in fact a slender-billed Vultur, as the Condor is a stout-billed
Cathartes. Deceived by Temminck, we at first adopted this
erroneous view, which we have finally rectified in our Observations
on the second edition of the Règne Animal of Cuvier. In returning
a

CONDOR
7
to what we consider the principles of Illiger, as they certainly
are the dictates of reason, it so happens that this genus Cathartes,
as is often the case, is found to correspond to a geographical
division, being exclusively American, whilst that of Vultur is in
like manner confined to the old continent. The other genera
which have been proposed among the Vulturidæ may be considered
as groups of secondary importance.
Thus the three European species* belong, according to Savigny,
to as many separate genera, namely, Gyps, Ægypius, and Neophron.
The last, restricted to its proper limits, is a very well marked
subgenus, which we adopt under the name of Percnopterus, Cuvier.
It contains to my knowledge but two well ascertained species,
which are the Slender-billed Vultures of the old continent.
The other European Vultures, with stout bills, are comprised
in my subgenus Vultur, composed of ten well known species. But
we must confess that the Vultur cinereus and Vultur fulvus differ
materially, and that even their skeletons present differences that
in other cases might be considered as even more than generic,
while one uniform osseous structure is found to prevail throughout
the numerous species of Falcons. This observation I believe has
never before been made. Savigny founded his groups, which are
excellent as subdivisions, on the different conformation of the
nostrils, on the tongue, aculeated on its margin in Gyps, and not
in Ægypius, and on the number of tail-feathers, which is twelve
in the latter, as in the American genus, and fourteen in his genus
Gyps, as well as in Neophron.
Thus are the twelve species constituting my genus Vultur
divided into two very natural subgenera, corresponding to the two
genera of Viellot, Vultur (comprising ten species,) and Neophron,
(comprising but two,) the first being subdivisible into the two
*
Ruppel reckons four. He makes two of V. fulvus, considering the Chasseficnte of
Le Vaillant a distinct species.
a

8
CONDOR.
minor groups of Savigny.
of Savigny. The three might indeed be considered
as co-ordinate subgenera.
As for the genus Cathartes, it is by no means so easy to divide,
and the two groups or subgenera which we admit are perhaps
artificial and blended too much together. The first, comprising
the Condor, the Californian Condor, and the King Vulture, that
is, the Stout-billed American Vultures, may be called Sarcoramphus,
a name confined by Duméril and Cuvier to those that have
caruncles or fleshy appendages on the head, but to which Vieillot
very justly added C. californianus, calling the group Gypagus.
The second subgenus of Cathartes may be called Catharista,
Vieillot, or the Slender-billed American Vultures, analogous in a
parallel series, where the strength of the bill is considered, to the
Percnopteri, but having no immediate affinity with them. The
only known species are the two of Wilson's work, Cathartes aura,
and Cathartes iota of my Synopsis, the former of which is a link
between its own group and the preceding.
The best discriminating mark between the two principal genera
of this family, one which is obvious and easily understood, is the
striking character of the perviousness of the nostrils in Cathartes,
through which light appears broadly from one side to the other,
while in the Vultures they are separated by an internal cartila-
ginous partition. This will make it at once evident that it was
for want of proper examination that the Percnopterus, merely on
account of its slender bill, was ever considered a Cathartes.
,
The remaining characters being more of a relative than a positive
kind, we shall not here notice them, except remarking that the
hind toe being much shorter and set on higher up in the
American genus, shows a greater affinity with the Gallinaceous
birds, an affinity which may be traced in other features of their
organization. The number of tail-feathers is fourteen in several
species of Vultures, whilst no Cathartes has ever been found to
a

CONDOR.
9
have more than twelve. The principal traits, both moral and
physical, are the same in all the birds composing this highly
natural family
All in fact are distinguished by having their head, which is
small, and their neck, more or less naked, these parts being
deprived of feathers, and merely furnished with a light down, or
a few scattered hairs. Their eyes are prominent, being set even
with the head, and not deep sunk in the socket, as in Eagles and
other rapacious birds. They have the power of drawing down
their head into a sort of collar formed by longer feathers at the
base of the neck: sometimes they withdraw the whole neck
and part of the head into this collar, so that the bird looks as if
it had drawn its whole neck down into the body. They have
a crop covered with setaceous feathers, or sometimes woolly
or entirely naked, and prominent, especially after indulging their
voracious appetite. Their feet are never feathered like those of
an Eagle, although they have been unnaturally so represented
in the plates of some authors. The tarsus is shorter than the
middle toe, which is connected at its base by a membrane with
the outer one. The claws are hardly retractile, comparatively
short, and from these birds' habit of keeping much on the
ground, instead of always perching, as the Falconidæ, they are
neither sharp pointed nor much curved. Their wings are long
and subacuminate, the third and fourth primaries being longest :
they are lined beneath with a thick down of a peculiar and very
soft nature.
The young birds have their head entirely covered with down,
which gradually falls off as they advance in age. The female is
larger than the male : their plumage varies greatly with age, and
they moult but once a year. The young are easily distinguished
by their downy head and neck, these parts in the adult being
naked, and by the absence of the caruncles which in some species
VOL. IV.-C

10
CONDOR
are found on the adult. These fleshy appendages are of the same
nature as the wattles, &c. of Gallinaceous birds.
No part of Ornithology has been more confused in its details
than that relative to the Vultures, and their synonymy, especially
the European species, is almost inextricable: the old authors have
heedlessly multiplied and even composed species, whilst the
modern have brought together the most confused citations under
those which at last they founded on the actual observation of
nature. We congratulate ourselves that the task of pointing out
all these errors, from which no writer without exception appears
free, does not belong to us.
Vile, gluttonous, and pre-eminently unclean, the Vulturidæ are
the only birds of prey that keep together in flocks all the year
round : as cowardly as they are indiscriminately voracious, they
are too pusillanimous, notwithstanding their numbers, to attack
living prey, and content themselves with the abundant supply of
food which is offered by the putrid carcasses of dead animals.
In fact, they appear to give the preference to these, with all their
disgusting concomitants, and only resort to freshly slaughtered
animals when impelled by extreme hunger. Their want of
courage is denoted by their crouching attitude and the humility
of their demeanour. Creatures with such dispositions did not
require from nature strength or powerful weapons; nothing was
needed but perfection of smelling, that they might from a distance
discover their appropriate food, and this faculty they possess in
an eminent degree. Their nostrils have two large external
apertures, and an extensive olfactory membrane within.
Though regarded with disgust for their filthy habits, these
well known birds are extremely serviceable in hot climates, by
devouring all sorts of filth and impurities, and thus preserving
the atmosphere from the contamination of noxious effluvia. On
this account their cowardice is protected by man, who in civilized
а.

CONDOR.
11
as well as savage life always looks to his own advantage, and
does not disdain to make use of those for whom he cannot
help feeling contempt. Besides their usefulness during life, the
Vultures have an additional security in their utter uselessness
when dead. In consequence of their food their body exhales a
disgusting effluvium, and their flesh is so rank, stringy, and
unsavoury, that nothing short of absolute famine can bring any
one to taste of it. No skill nor precautions in cooking can
overcome its nåtural bad odour, which prevails over the most
powerful spices. But though not eatable themselves, they excel
in picking clean to the very bones the carrion they feed upon,
leaving them as bare as if they had been carefully scraped.
With this food they gorge themselves to such a degree as to be
incapable of flight, and hardly able to move for some time, and
then allow of a very close approach. In fact their indolence,
filthiness, and voracity, are almost incredible.
They are birds of slow flight at all times, and raise themselves
from the ground with difficulty, though when surprised and closely
pursued after overfeeding, when they are almost helpless, they
can lighten themselves by vomiting up their superfluous meal,
sometimes to the great annoyance of the pursuer, and then at
once take flight. Their sight is exceedingly keen, and is only
inferior in power to their sense of smelling, which enables them
to discover their peculiar food at great and incredible distances.
They are dull and heavy, fond of assembling in flocks upon trees,
where they may be seen perched for hours together, sitting with
their wings open as if ventilating their plumage. They walk with
the body inclined forward, the wings drooping, the tail brushing
the ground. When they wish to take flight, they are obliged to
run a few paces, and then contract the body violently. Their
flight, though slow, is protracted for a greater length of time than
even perhaps that of the Eagle, though more laborious and heavy.

12
CONDOR.
They elevate themselves to such wonderful heights, that as they
describe circle after circle, they gradually appear no larger than a
swallow, next a mere speck is visible, then disappearing altogether
from the limited power of human vision. Not, however, beyond
their own, for as they hover over the country beneath, they can
discover a carcass or carrion anywhere over a very wide district.
In the East they are well known to follow the caravans; in Africa
and South America they accompany and wait upon the hunter's
steps. If a beast is flayed and abandoned, calling to each other
with shrill but resounding voice, they pour down upon the carcass, ,
and in a short time, so dexterously do they manage the operation,
nothing remains but the naked skeleton. If the skin should be
left on the prey they discover, an entrance is soon made through
the belly, by which they extract all but the bones, which are left
so well covered by the skin as hardly to show that they have
been at work there. Should a sickly ox or smaller animal be
accidentally exposed defenceless, or from any cause unable to
resist, the Vultures fall upon and devour him without mercy
in
the same manner. Thus in the mountainous districts of hot
countries, in which they are very numerous, the hunter who wishes
to secure his game dares not quit an animal he may have killed, for
fear of its immediately becoming their prey. Le Vaillant, while
in Africa, met with frequent losses through the rapacity of these
parasites, which, immediately notified by the calling of the Crows,
flocked around in multitudes, and speedily devoured large animals
that he had killed, depriving him not only of his own meal, but
of many a valuable specimen intended as a contribution to science.
They may be frequently seen tearing a carcass in company with
dogs or other ravenous quadrupeds, such associations producing
no quarrel, however lean and hungry both may be. Harmony
always subsists, so long as they have plenty, among creatures of
dispositions so congenial. But the Eagle drives them to a distance

CONDOR.
13
C
till he is satisfied, and only permits them to enjoy the fragments
of the prey he has conquered. With the same expectation of
feeding upon the leavings, they attend upon the ferocious quad-
rupeds of the Cat kind, and may thus indicate the vicinity of these
dangerous beasts. That it is cowardice which prevents them
from attacking animals capable of making any defence is evident.
The innate cruelty of their disposition is often manifested towards
the helpless. To a deserted lamb they show no mercy, and living
serpents and whatever other minor animals they can overpower
are their usual food. They are also, it is said, extremely fond of
crocodiles' and alligators’ eggs, to obtain which they keep watch
unseen in the adjacent forest while the female is laying, and as
soon as she is gone descend, and removing the sand where they
are buried, greedily devour them.
The Vultures are mostly found in warm climates, although by
no means afraid of cold, as they prefer the vicinity of lofty
mountains; those which inhabit in the north retiring southward
in winter in the northern hemisphere. Their favourite abodes are
rocks and caverns among broken precipices, where they retire
to sleep and to digest their meals when overfed, which happens as
often as an opportunity offers: in such retreats they may be often
observed in great numbers together, enjoying the exhilirating
air of the morning. Their nest is made with hardly any prepa-
ration on inaccessible cliffs or other places where they can seldom
be found by man. They reside generally where they breed,
seldom coming down into the plains, except when frost and
snow have driven all living things from the heights: they
are then compelled to brave danger in pursuit of food. The
Vultures generally lay but two eggs at a time, sometimes three
or four, especially the North American species; and are faithfully
monogamous. In their mode of supplying their young with food,
there is a striking difference between them and other rapacious
m
VOL. IV.D

14
CONDOR
birds. The latter place before their progeny the quivering limbs
of their prey, that they may learn to employ their beak and
talons. The Vultures, whose claws are not fitted for seizing and
bearing off their spoils, disgorge into the mouth of their young
the contents of their crop, from the nature of which this operation,
so interesting when performed by a dove or a canary, becomes
in this case one of the most disgusting imaginable.
According to Belon, the Latin name Vultur is but a contraction
of volatu tardo : the name Cathartes imagined by Illiger, means
in Greek, purger. Condor is a corruption of Cuntur, the true
appellation of our species in the Qquichua language, derived,
according to Humboldt, from the verb cunturi, to smell.
Although the largest of American Vultures, the Condor is
inferior in size to several of those which inhabit the old continent,
and even to the large Golden Vulture of eastern Europe. Both
sexes are very nearly of equal size; but the superiority, if any, is
found as usual upon the side of the female; so that the common
statement of writers, that this sex is of less size, has no foundation
in fact.
The adult male is always more than three feet long, and
measures nine feet from tip to tip of the extended wings. Some
gigantic individuals are met with four feet long and twelve in
extent. The bill is dark brown colour at the base, somewhat
of a lemon white at tip. The tongue is entire, cartilaginous,
membranous, ovate-cuneate, concave beneath, serrated with spines
on the margin. A longitudinal compressed caruncle, or firm
fleshy crest extends from the top of the head to the front, and to
the brown portion of the bill. It is rounded before and behind,
a sinus on the upper border, the lower free for a short space at
each extremity, papillous, or strongly wrinkled, and, as well as
the cere, of a bluish colour. The nostrils are oval-linear, and
with no hairs surrounding them.
The skin of the neck and crop

CONDOR
15
a
is bare, with the exception of some scattered short and rigid
hairs; it is reddish, and has two short pear-shaped processes
depending from it. Two intertwisted fleshy strings arise from the
bill, pass over the auditory region, and descend along the sides of
the neck: these fleshy cords acquire by desiccation, in stuffed
specimens, the appearance of a series of tubercles or wrinkled
protuberances: a double string of a similar substance passes
above
the eye, which is small, much lengthened, and lateral, being set
far back from the bill: the irides are of an olive gray. Their
cavernous structure enables the bird to swell out all these
appendages at pleasure, like the Turkey: the crest, however,
must be excepted, which is very dissimilar to the flaccid, pendulous
cone of the Turkey, and incapable of dilatation. The orifice of
the ear is very large, subrounded, but hidden under the folds of
the temporal membrane. The occiput exhibits a few short brown
bristles. Around the lower part of the neck above is a beautiful
half collar of silky and very soft down as white as snow, which
separates the naked parts from the feathered body. In front this
collar is interrupted, and the neck is bare down to the black
plumage : this gap in the collar can however only be discovered
on close inspection. The whole plumage is of a very deep blue
black; the tips of the secondaries and the greater wing-coverts
on the outer web only being of a whitish pearl-gray: the first
seven outer quills are wholly black, twenty-seven being white on
their outer web: the third quill is the longest. The wings are
three feet nine inches long, reaching nearly to the tip of the tail,
but not passing beyond, as in the closely related species the
Californian Condor. The tail is very slightly rounded at the
end, rather short in proportion to the bird, measuring thirteen
inches. The feet are bluish : the toes connected at their base by
a membrane.
The female is entirely destitute of crest or other appendages.

16
CONDOR.
:
a
The skin which covers the head is uniformly blackish, like the
plumage, in which there is only a little cinereous on the wings :
in this sex the wing-coverts, which in the male are white at tip
from the middle, are of a blackish gray. This circumstance is
very conclusive, inasmuch as the white forms a very conspicuous
mark on the wings of the male, which has occasioned it to be
said that some Condors had a white back.
For several months during the early part of their life, the young
are covered with very soft whitish down, curled, and resembling
that of young owls : this down is so loose as to make the bird
appear a large shapeless mass. Even at two years old the Condor
is by no means black, but of an obscure fulvous brown, and both
sexes are then destitute of the white collar.
The following description and admeasurements are from a pair
of young living birds, said to be nine months old, caught on the
Peruvian Andes. One of these (which are precisely alike,) was
.
)
captured by an Indian, who discovering two in the nest, ran up at
great speed, fearing to be overtaken by the old ones, and
succeeded in securing it by putting it in his pocket, not larger
than a full grown chicken. I have carefully compared this with,
I
and found perfectly similar to it, a bill and a quill-feather brought
from the Columbia River by Lewis and Clark and preserved in
the Philadelphia Museum. These remains prove the existence of
the Condor within the United States, and sufficiently authorize
its introduction into this work.
Length three feet nine inches. Breadth nine feet. Bill to the
corner of the mouth two inches six-eighths; to the cere one inch
and a half, to the down three and a quarter inches. Bill curved
and hooked, with several flexures; upper mandible passing over
the lower, which is rounded and scalloped: nostrils pervious,
rounded-elliptical, cut in the cere. Bill outside, cere, and all the
surrounding naked parts black; ears without any covering, the
a

CONDOR.
17
.
skin rugose : inside of the bill yellowish white, margined with
black, palate furnished with a fleshy skin, having the appearance
of a row of teeth in the middle, then of a hard ridge looking like
a file, and two marginal rows: tongue broadly concave, and
serrated on the turned up edges with sharp pointed cutting serra-
tures : an elevation of the skin indicating the frontal caruncle;
the place where the bristles begin to appear is also indicated by
an elevation. Eye full and rounded : iris blackish: membrane of
the throat very dilatable: head and neck covered by a thick silky
down of a brownish black colour; on the front more dark and
bristly; general colour dark brown, each feather having a banded
appearance, tipped with more or less of umber; quill and tail-
feathers black, with a gloss of blue. The number of tail-feathers
is twelve, the closed wings not reaching beyond, though very
nearly to the tip. Feet black : acrotarsus beautifully colligate,
acrodactylus scutellated : the whole leg measures one foot in
length, of which the tarsus is five and a quarter inches, and the
middle toe and nail six, the nail being one and a half: lateral toes
connected with the middle as far as the first joint by a membrane;
the inner two and a half inches long without the nail, which is
one and a half; the outer with the nail a quarter of an inch
shorter ; hind toe articulated inside, bearing on the ground only
with the point of the nail, an inch and a half long, the nail one
inch more, and much incurved: sole of the foot granulated : fat
part of the heel large and rough. The feet have been generally
described as white or whitish, owing to their being commonly
stained with the excrements, which the bird throws much forward,
but they are in fact of a fine blue horn colour when washed clean,
and these birds seemed to be fond of washing themselves.
The Condor is diffused over the continent of South America
from the straits of Magellan, extending its range also to Mexico
and California, and the western territory of the United States
VOL. IV.-E

18
CONDOR
beyond the Rocky Mountains. It was not seen by Lewis and
Clark until they had passed the great falls of the Columbia, and
it is by no means common or numerous any where in the northern
parts of America, those individuals that have been observed here
appear to have been stragglers from their native country, which
is no doubt South America. It might even be limited to the great
chain of the Andes, especially their most elevated ranges, being
plentiful in Quito, Peru, New Granada, and Antioquia, and much
more rare where they are less lofty, the Condor inhabiting pretty
nearly the same altitude with the Cinchone and other subalpine
plants. It is moreover, according to the observations of Hum-
boldt, the invariable companion of the Guanaco for an extent of
nearly three thousand miles of coast, after which this animal is
no longer seen, but the Condor continues to be met with much
beyond this, as if quite indifferent to climate, or because it can
regulate it by varying its elevation with the change of latitude.
In the eastern or even southern United States a Condor has
never been seen, though the King Vulture of South America has
been occasionally observed. The chief abode of the Condor is
indeed on the highest summits of the Andes, some of which are
covered with perpetual snow, and is fixed by Humboldt at between
three thousand one hundred and four thousand nine hundred
metres. Every time, says he, that I have been herborizing near
the limits of perpetual snow, we were sure to be surrounded by
Condors. These mountains and the forests that clothe their
sides are the Condor's home, and from these their excursions are
extended over the whole neighbourhood to the very sea, from
which they may be often seen hovering at prodigious heights and
describing vast circles, but always ready to lower themselves by
degrees whenever they espy a chance of satisfying their voracious
appetite. They are only known, however, to descend towards the
seashore during the rainy season, corresponding to our winter,

CONDOR.
19
а.
when they come in search of food and warmer weather: they
then obtain the bodies of large fishes or marine animals, such
as Whales or Seals, and the prospect of finding these is their
principal attraction to the shore: they arrive here at evening, and
as a journey of several hundred miles requires for them but little
time or exertion, as soon as their meal is digested, and they begin
to feel lighter, they return to their favourite rocks, often during
the following day. They have sometimes been killed at sea,
floating on the dead body of a Whale which they were tearing for
food. They exhibit the common propensity of their tribe for
carrion, and nothing but the urgent stimulus of hunger can bring
them to attack living creatures, and then their cowardice will not
allow them to meddle with any but the feeble or diseased which
are incapable of defending themselves. They will also combine
together to overpower their prey, if they see the least danger of
resistance. A single Cougar, or even a courageous bird, will drive
from their prey a whole troop of Condors, which however seldom
amounts to more than five or six, as they do not collect in such
numerous bodies as their fellow Vultures. When feeding on a
Cow, a Guanaco, or a Paco, they first pick out the eyes, then tear
away and devour the tongue, and next the entrails, at last picking
the flesh from the bones. Smaller animals they generally swallow
whole. Guided by their amazingly acute faculty of smell, the
Condor will arrive, performing circular evolutions, from the
highest regions of the atmosphere upon a carrion, and often,
trusting to their powers of digestion, they swallow bones and flesh
together. The Indians, too indolent to keep clean their butchering
or similar places, and often neglecting to bury their dead with
sufficient carefulness, have a great veneration for this bird and
others of its kind, to which they trust to rid them of such nuisances.
The regard with which they are treated makes them so familiar,
that Humboldt relates his being able to approach within two

20
CONDOR.
yards of a troop of Condors before they retreated, though he had
other persons in his company. When full-fed the Condor will
remain motionless on a projecting rock, and has then a sinister
appearance; if on the ground, however, he allows of a close chase
before having recourse to his ample wings, hopping along before
his pursuer. When on the contrary he is pressed by hunger and
light from emptiness, he will soar to extreme heights in the
atmosphere, especially in clear weather, whence he can discover
prey at any possible distance. They lay in the most inaccessible
parts of the Andes, near the limit of perpetual snow, on the most
broken and terrific precipices, where no other living creature can
dwell. Nests have been found at the extraordinary elevation of
fifteen thousand feet. Their eggs are usually laid on the naked
rock, or with very little preparation, and never on trees, which
they even avoid alighting on, unlike their congeners in this
respect, and always on rocks or the ground, the straightness of
their nails making this easier for them. The eggs are white,
and three or four inches long. The young are entirely covered
with very soft whitish down, and the mother is said to provide for
them during a long time. The facts relative to their propagation
are not, however, sufficiently ascertained, for how are we to verify
assertions relating to operations performed so much beyond the
reach of ordinary observation.
Authors describe various modes that have been resorted to for
destroying the Condors in their native countries, where they
sometimes become a nuisance; such as poisoning carrion, seizing
them by the legs by hiding under the skin of a calf, and by
building narrow enclosures in which is placed putrid flesh, when
the birds flying down and feeding greedily, are unable to take
wing again for want of space to get a start by running. But we
scarcely see any advantage in such stratagems, since they may be
caught with running knots while disabled by repletion, or even,

CONDOR.
21
as it is reported, knocked down with clubs; and in any case we
;
are at a loss to reconcile such persecutions with the protection so
wisely granted them both by civilized and savage man.
In captivity, the Condor is easily tamed if taken young, and
,
does not refuse any kind of animal food whatever, nor do they
appear to dread or suffer in the least from the extreme changes
of the climate in Europe and the north-eastern parts of America.
But it is almost impossible to keep the adults, which are always
exceedingly wild and mischievous. They are incredibly tenacious
of life: the bones are so hard as to resist a musket-ball, to which
also the thick down of their plumage is impenetrable. They can
resist strangulation for hours, even when hanged and hard pulled
by the feet.
A remarkable fact is that in domesticity they will
not refuse water, drinking it in a very peculiar manner, by holding
their lower mandible in it for some time, and using it as a spoon
to throw the liquid into their throat. The individual represented
in our plate was remarkable for playfulness and a kind of stupid
good nature. During Mr. Lawson's almost daily visits for the
purpose of measuring and examining accurately every part for his
engraving, he became so familiar and well acquainted that he
would pull the paper out of the artist's hands, or take the
spectacles from his nose, so that Mr. Lawson, seduced by these
blandishments, and forgetting its character in other respects, does
not hesitate to declare the Condors the gentlest birds he ever
had to deal with.
VOL. IV.-F
S



1
2
3
co
Persoana
Line
Drann from Nature by T. Peal!
Red breasted Snipe.
Scolopax Grisen.
Engraved by Alexander Sansson.
Glassy. His
Pectoral Sandpiper
Tringa - Pectoralis.
Pu
His Falcinellus.
22

23
GLOSSY IBIS.
IBIS FALCINELLUS.
Plate XXIII. Fig. 1.
Tantalus falcinellus, LINN. Syst. I, p. 241, sp. 2. Gmel. Syst. I, p. 648, sp. 2. Latu.
Ind. II, p. 707, sp. 14. BRUNN. Orn. sp. 167. Scop. Ann. I, sp. 131. KRAM.
Austr. p. 350. Borowsky, III, p. 72. Faun. Helv. Retz, Faun. Suec. p. 171,
sp. 135. Nilss. Orn. Suec. II, p. 43, sp. 160.
Ibis falcinellus, VIEILL. Nouv. Dict. Id. Enc. Met. Orn. TEMM. Man. Orn. II, p.
598. SAVI, Orn. Tosc. II, p. 327. Nov. Obs. Nom. Wils. Orn. note to No. 199.
In. Syn. Birds U. S. sp. 241. Id. Cat. Id. Specc. Comp. WAGLER, Syst. Av. Ibis,
sp. 1. Roux, Orn. Prov. pl. 309. GOLDFUSS, Nat. Allas, pl. 95.
Ibis sacra, TEMM. Man. Orn. ed. 1, p. 385.
Tantalus igneus, Gmel. Syst. I, p. 649, sp. 9. Lath. Ind. II, p. 708, sp. 16, very old
individual.
Tantalus viridis, Gmel. Syst. I, p. 648, sp. 8. Lath. Ind. II, p. 707, sp. 15. MONTAGU,
in Linn. Trans. IX, p. 198.
Tantalus mexicanus? Ord, in Journ. Ac. Philad. I, p. 53, (and perhaps of other authors,
in that case the Acalot of Ray and Buffon, and its derivatives.*)
Numenius castaneus, Briss. Orn. V, p 329, sp. 5. Id. Svo. II, p. 294, (old indiv.)
.
Numenius viridis, Briss. Orn. V, p. 326, sp. 4, t. 27, fig. 2. Id. 8vo. II, p. 293, two
years old.
Numenius viridis, S. G. Gmel. Reis. I, p. 167. Id. in Nov. Comm. Petrop. XV, p. 462,
t. 19, young
* The following are the indications of that obscure species, the Mexican Ibis :-
Tantalus mexicanus, Gmel. Syst. I, p. 652, sp. 18. LATH. Ind. II. p. 704, sp. 4.
Lath
Ibis mexicana, of later compilers. Ibis acalot of French compilers and Dictionaries.
Numenius mexicanus varius, Briss. V, p. 335, sp. 7. Id. 8vo. II, p. 295.
Acacolotl, Ray, Syn. p. 104, sp. 5. WILL. p. 218. Id. Engl. p. 296.
Acalot, Buff. Ois. VIII, p. 45.
Mexican Ibis, Lath. Syn. III, pt. 1, p. 108, sp. 5. Id. Gen. Hist. IX, p. 146, sp. 5.
This bird is said to inhabit Mexico: it will not be superfluous to remark, that the
proportions assigned to it are much larger than those of our Ibis falcinellus.

24
GLOSSY IBIS.
JONSTON
Numenius igneus, S. G. GMEL. Reise. I, p. 166. Id. in Nov. Comm. Petrop. XV, p.
460, t. 13, old specimen.
Tringa autumnalis, HASSELQUIST, Iter Palest. II, p. 306, sp. 26, 27, two years old.
Falcinellus, GESSNER, Av. p. 220.
.
Falcata, GESSNER, Ic. Av. p. 116, with a bad figure.
Falcinellus, sive Avis falcata, AlDROV. Av. III, p. 422 and 423. Jonston, Av. p. 105.
.
CHARLETON, Excit. p. 110, sp. 7. Ib. Onomatz, p. 103, sp. 7.
.
Falcinellus Gesneri & Aldrovandi, WILLOUGHBY, Orn. p. 218.
Arcuata minor, &c. Marsigli, Danub. V, p. 42, tab. 18, adult, 20, young.
Numenius sub-aquilus, KLEIN, Av. p. 110, sp. S.
Falcinellus, or Sithebill, Ray, Av. p. 103, sp. 3. WILL. Orn. p. 295 tab. 54. Ip.
Engl. p. 295, tab. 54, fig. 4.
Le Fauconneau ! Falcinellus, SALERNE, Orn. p. 322.
Courlis vert, Buff. Ois. VIII, p. 29, (ed. 1783,) VIII, p. 379, Vers. Germ. OTTO,
XXII, p. 170, fig.
Courlis d'Italie, Buff. pl. enl. 819, adult Male.
Courlis brillant, SONNINI, Buff. Ois. XXII, p. 238, old Female.
Ibis vert, Cov. Règn. Anim. I, p. 485. Id. 2d ed. I, p. 520. Roux, loco citato.
SAVIGNY, Egypt. Ois. tab. VII, left hand fig. two years old.
Ibis noir, Savign. Hist. Nat. et Mythol. de l'Ibis, p. 36, tab. 4.
Ibis sacré, Temm. Man. Orn. first ed. but not of Cuvier.
Ibis falcinelle, of most French authors and of the Dictionaries.
Chiurlo, &c. Storia degli Uccelli, IX, p. 439, old Male.
Ibi falcinello, RANZANI, Elem. III, pt. VIII, p. 185, sp. 3.
Mignattajo, Savi, loco citato.
Bay Ibis, Penn. Arct. Zool. II, p. 460, A. Lath. Syn. III, pt. 1, p. 113, sp. 13. Id.
Suppl. p. 67. Germ. trans. by Bechst. V, p. 67, tab. 81, young. Lath. Gen. Hist.
IX, p. 152, sp. 15. Brit. Miscell. tab. 18.
Brit. Miscell. tab. 18. Montag. Orn. Dict. Suppl.
Green Ibis, Lath. Syn. III, pt. 1, p. 114, sp. 13, young Linnean Trans. IX, p. 198.
Montag. Orn. Dict. Suppl. Lath. Gen. Hist. IX. p. 154, sp. 18.
Glossy Ibis, LATH. Syn. III, pt. 1, p. 115, sp. 14, old specimen. Id. Gen. Hist. IX,
p. 154, sp. 17. Brit. Zool. 1812, II, p. 30. MONTAG. Orn. Dict. Suppl.
Brazilian Curlew, Nat. Miscell. tab. 705 ?
Sichelsnabliger Nimmerzatt, Bechst. Nat. Deutschl. IV. p. 116. Meyer & WOLF,
Tasch. Deutschl. Vog. II, p. 352. Naum. Vog. Nacht. t. 28, adult Male.
Braune Ibis, BREHM. Lehrb. Eur. Vog. II, p. 528.
Philadelphia Museum.

GLOSSY IBIS.
25
Though it may appear very extraordinary, it is not less true,
that one of the two species of Ibis worshipped by the ancient
Egyptians, their Black Ibis, has a claim to be included in our
work as being an occasional visitant of the eastern shores of
these states. This fact, which we would be among the first to
disbelieve were we to read of it in the eloquent pages of Buffon,
is authenticated by the specimen here figured, which moreover
is not a solitary instance of the kind. Thus, instead of being
limited to a peculiar district of Egypt, as stated by Pliny, Solinus,
and others, and reiterated by the host of compilers, this celebrated
bird is only limited in its irregular wanderings by the boundaries
of the globe itself.
The credit of having added this beautiful species to the Fauna
of the United States is due to Mr. Ord, the well known friend and
biographer of Wilson, who several years ago gave a good history
and minute description of it in the Journal of the Academy of
Philadelphia, under the name of Tantalus mexicanus ? His excel-
lent memoir would have been sufficient to establish its identity
with the species found so extensively in the old world, even if the
specimen itself, carefully preserved in the Philadelphia Museum,
did not place this beyond the possibility of doubt.
Among the natural productions which their priests had through
policy taught the superstitious Egyptians to worship, the Ibis is
one of the most celebrated for the adoration it received, though
for what reason it is not easy to understand. The dread of
noxious animals, formidable on account of their strength or
numbers, may induce feelings of respect and veneration, or they
may be felt still more naturally for others that render us services
by destroying those that are injurious, or ridding man of anything
that interferes with his enjoyments, or by ministering to his wants.
We can conceive how a sense of gratitude should cause these to
be held sacred, in order to insure their multiplication, and that
VOL. IV.-G

26
GLOSSY IBIS.
a
this sentiment should even be carried to adoration.
But why
grant such honours to the wild, harmless, and apparently useless
Ibis? It is perfectly well proved at this day that the Ibis is as
useless as it is inoffensive, and if the Egyptian priests who
worshipped the Deity in his creatures declared it pre-eminently
sacred; if while the adoration of other similar divinities was
confined to peculiar districts, that of the Ibis was universal over
Egypt; if it was said, that should the Gods take mortal forms it
would be under that of the Ibis that they would prefer to appear
on earth, and so many things of the kind, we can assign no other
reason than the fact of their appearing with the periodical rains,
coming down from the upper country when the freshening Etherian
winds began to blow, when they were driven in search of a better
climate by the very rains that produce the inundation of the Nile,
doing Egypt such signal benefit. The Ibis, whose appearance
accompanied these blessings, would disappear also at the season
when the south desert winds from the internal parts of Africa
brought desolation in their train, which could be averted only by
the periodical return of the circumstances represented by the Ibis,
which seemed like Providence to control them, and was therefore
declared the real Providence of Egypt, though merely the conco-
mitant, and by no means the cause of those blessings, by which
they profited in common with all. It thus became so identified
with the country as to be used as its hieroglyphic representative,
and was said to be so attached to its native land that it would die
of grief if carried out of it, and it was on account of its fidelity to
the soil that it was honoured as its emblem. So good a citizen
could not of course from selfish motives migrate periodically, and
its absence must have been for its country's sake!
Hence the
ridiculous tale current throughout antiquity, and strengthened by
the testimony of Herodotus, Ælian, Solinus, Marcellinus, copied
by Cicero, (who went so far as to assign to the Ibis proper

GLOSSY IBIS.
27
instruments for the purpose, such a strong bill,) by Pliny and
others, and credited in our days to a certain extent by Buffon, who
thus accounted for the divine honours it received. I allude to the
story of their attacking and destroying periodically on the limits of
civilization immense flocks of small but most pernicious winged
serpents generated by the fermentation of marshes, which without
the generous protection afforded by the Ibis would cause the utter
ruin of Egypt.
Still more unaccountable is it that naturalists and philosophers
should have been so long in finding out the true meaning of this
oriental figure. How could the Ibis with its feeble bill, whose
pressure can be hardly felt on the most delicate finger, and which
is only calculated for probing in the mud after small mollusca and
worms in places just left bare after an inundation, how could
such a weapon cut to pieces and destroy so many monsters if they
had existed. How could these learned men (notwithstanding that
Herodotus relates his seeing heaps of their bones or spines,)
believe for an instant in the existence of these winged serpents ;
and why try to reconcile truth with a barefaced falsehood, or
with expressions manifestly figurative. We are aware that some
modern translators of Herodotus, by forcing the Greek original to
meet their own views, have attempted to write instead of winged
serpents, the word locusta, which insects are known to come in vast
swarms, causing periodically great devastation even in some parts
of Europe. But nothing is gained by this plausible and apparently
learned supposition, since the conformation of the Ibis would
prevent it from making any havoc among these enemies, whose
being winged would not moreover save their author from the
difficulty, locusts having certainly neither bones nor spines. The
figure intended is still plainer, and Savigny, who first pointed
it out, could in my opinion have saved himself many a page of his
classical dissertation, and without any recourse to the idea of the
a

28
GLOSSY IBIS.
Cerastes, for to me it is evident that by the winged serpents were
originally signified the exhalations from the marshes, so noxious
in Egypt when brought by the south-easterly or Typhonian winds,
against which the Ibis was observed to direct its flight and to
conquer, aided, it is true, by the powerful sweeping Etherian winds.
Be this as it may, no animal was more venerated by the
Egyptians than the Ibis : there was none whose history was more
encumbered with fictions. Notwithstanding the ridicule thrown
upon it by Aristotle, the Ibis was believed to be so essentially
pure and chaste, as to be incapable of any immodest act. The
priests declared the water to be only fit for ablutions and religious
purposes when the Ibis had deigned to drink of it. Yet by
some unaccountable contradiction Roman authors made of it an
unclean animal. It is needless here to repeat all the fanciful
and extravagant things said of the Ibis among a people whose
credulity, superstition, and wildness of imagination knew no
bounds. It was represented by the priests as a present from
Osiris to Isis, or the fertilized soil, and as such was carefully
brought up in the temples, those first menageries of antiquity. It
was forbidden under pain of severest punishment to kill or injure
in the least these sacred beings, and their dead bodies even were
carefully preserved in order to secure eternity for them. It is well
known with what art the Egyptians endeavoured to eternize
death, notwithstanding the manifest will of nature that we should
be rid of its dreaded images, and that many animals held sacred
shared with man himself in these posthumous honours. In the
Soccora plains many wells containing mummies are rightly called
birds' wells, on account of the embalmed birds, generally of the
Ibis kind, which they contain. These are found enclosed in long
jars of baked earth, whose opening is hermetically closed with
cement, so that it is necessary to break them to extract the
mummy. Buffon obtained several of these jars, in each of which

GLOSSY IBIS.
29
there was a kind of doll enveloped in wrappers of linen cloth,
and when these were removed the body fell in a blackish dust,
but the bones and feathers retained more consistence, and could
be readily recognized. Dr. Pearson, who received some of these
jars from Thebes, gives a more minute description, as does also
Savigny. E. Geoffroy, and Grobert, also brought from Egypt
some very perfect embalmed Ibises, and I have availed myself
of every opportunity to examine such as were within my reach,
and especially those preserved in the Kircherian Museum at
Rome, one of which, containing a most perfect skeleton, is now
before me.
By far the greater part of the jars contain nothing but a kind
of fat black earth, resulting from the decomposition of the entrails
and other soft parts buried exclusively in them. Each bird is
enclosed in a small earthen jar with a cover used for the purpose.
The body is wrapped up in several layers of cloth, about three
inches broad, saturated with some resinous substance, besides a
quantity of other layers fixed in their place by a great many turns
of thread crossed with much art, so much indeed that it is by no
means easy to lay the parts bare for inspection without injuring
them. Space appears to have been considered of much value in
preparing these mummies, and every means was used to secure
them within the least possible compass, by bending and folding
the limbs one upon another. The neck is twisted so as to bring
the crown of the head on the body, a little to the left of the
stomach, the curved bill with its convexity upward is placed
between the feet, thus reaching beyond the extremity of the tail :
each foot with its four claws turned forward, one bent upward
and elevated on each side of the head; the wings brought close
to the sides, much in their natural position. In separating them
to discover the interior, nothing of the viscera nor any of the
soft parts remain, the bones exhibit no traces of muscle or
VOL. IV.-H

30
GLOSSY IBIS.
tendon adhering to them, and the joints separate at the least
touch. Most of these mummies, it must be admitted, are not
of the species of which we are writing, (and which also is but
seldom represented hieroglyphically,) but of the white kind,
which was more venerated, the Ibis religiosa of Cuvier; and some
authors even deny that a well authenticated Black Ibis has ever
been unwrapped. Complete birds even of the white species are
extremely rare. Cuvier obtained the entire skeleton from an
embalmed subject, and Dr. Pearson was so fortunate as to
discover the perfect bird in two brought among other mummies
from Thebes. They have been accurately described in the
scientific journals of England under the name of true Egyptian
or Theban Ibis. The Egyptian Ibis of Latham is however
nothing but the Tantalus Ibis.
Buffon by means of his mummies was enabled to verify the
real size of the Ibis, and as he found two bills entire among
those he examined, he settled the genus to which the sacred bird
belonged, and stated very correctly that its place was between
the Stork and the Curlew, where later naturalists have arranged
it. But it is to be regretted that a preconceived opinion should
have so blinded him that he could not see the furrows of the
upper
mandible, which do exist in a very eminent degree, as I have
personally ascertained, notwithstanding his statements to the
contrary, in making which he must have had before him the bill
of the Tantalus, which he mistook for the Ibis. These furrows
it is of the more consequence to note, inasmuch as they form the
principal discrimination between the genera Tantalus and Ibis,
and serve to put an end to a controversy to which the sacred Ibis
has given rise.
Although every traveller in Egypt has used his exertions to
collect all the facts relative to a bird which plays such a part in
the sacred legends of that country, a bird associated with so many

GLOSSY IBIS.
31
of the wonders of antiquity, yet it was for a long period a question
among naturalists and scholars to what species the name of Ibis
was properly to be applied, As, however, contrary to the general
practice of the ancients, the description of the bird did exist, and
even a representation, tolerably good, among their sculptured
hieroglyphics, it could only be because it was supposed that
divine honours must have been the reward of signal services that
any dispute could ever arise on the subject. A sacred bird must
of course, it was concluded, be a great destroyer of venomous
animals, which the timid Ibis is not; hence the misapplication of
the name. To such an extent did this idea prevail, and predo-
minate over all others, that Buffon, who could only feel contempt
for the idle tales related of the Ibis, so involved their true history
as to attribute to them the most violent antipathy to serpents, on
which he supposed they fed, and destroyed them by all possible
means, and assigns to them the habits of a species of Vulture.
Others maintained, notwithstanding its long and falcate bill, that
it was in fact a Vulture, which was indeed the most natural
conclusion after they had begun by giving it such habits. Cuvier
himself, who cleared up and rectified every thing else in relation
to the Ibis, because he found in a mummy some skins and scales
of serpents, most probably embalmed as companions, which was
frequently done with different kinds of animals, declared it a true
snake-eater.
Two different kinds of Ibis were known to the ancients, and
looked upon by the Egyptians as sacred; the White, common
throughout Egypt, and the Black, which was said to be found
only in a peculiar district. It is the latter of which we are now
to treat, a bird long known to, but not recognized by naturalists;
whilst the white was only rediscovered, in later times, by the
courageous Abyssinian traveller Bruce, who first among the
moderns obtained correct notions respecting it. Bruce's Ibis

32
GLOSSY IBIS.
has been since proclaimed by Cuvier and Savigny the true Ibis,
in place of the Tantalus Ibis of Linné, which he so called for want
of knowing the real Ibis, believing this to be it, though but very
seldom even found in Egypt. This opinion, which though more
plausible than that which it superseded, was still erroneous,
originated with Perrault, and was adopted and maintained by
Buffon, Brisson, Linné, Blumenbach, and all others until lately,
when Colonel Grobert returning from Egypt presented Fourcroy
with mummies which enabled Cuvier first to perceive that the
Ibis was not a Tantalus, but a true Ibis, which genus he did not
then distinguish from Numenius. Savigny in the year 1806 by an
admirable work on the Ibis, put the question at rest.
The sacred White Ibis, though not in reality peculiar to Egypt,
where it is seen only at certain seasons of the year, does not
however migrate to far distant countries : it is spread throughout
Africa, and species extremely similar to it are found in India and
Ceylon. But it is not our province to treat of it, and it has
already formed the subject of several volumes.
We have already remarked that Buffon justly indicated the
natural relations of the Ibis by stating that it was intermediate
between the Stork and the Curlew. What he said of the species
we shall extend to the three families to which the three birds
belong in our system. In the transition from one group to
another Nature seems often to make the passage by insensible
intermediate steps, and it sometimes happens that the species
placed on the limits of two groups belong decidedly to one or
the other, and even when it may be impossible to say to which
they ought to be referred, we still cannot admit them as types of
an intermediate group. At other times the intermediate species
form a small group by themselves, and although a portion of such
a connecting group shows great affinity to that which follows it,
while another portion is equally connected with a preceding group,

GLOSSY IBIS.
33
yet the two parts are still more related between themselves. So
it is with the family of Tantalidæ or Falcati, formed from the genus
Tantalus of Linné, and composed of but two very natural genera,
Tantalus and Ibis, the former of which retains a resemblance to
the Ardeida or Cultrirostres, while the latter claims a stronger
affinity with the Scolopacide or Limicolæ. Nothing, in our opinion,
shows more the propriety and even necessity of distinguishing
this small intermediate group from those which touch upon it.
Buffon and Brisson, who used as a character the artificial one
of the curved bill, did not separate the Tantalidæ from the
Curlews, which are real Scolopacidæ, though somewhat allied to
Ibis. Linné, whose philosophical tact was seldom at fault, and
who crowded all the Scolopacidæ into his arbitrary genera Tringa
and Scolopax, did not however confound the two families, for he
employed as a distinguishing mark of his genus Tantalus the
important character of the naked face. He was followed by
Latham and others. The Ibis of Lacépède is equivalent to the
Tantalus of Linné, though by giving the genus this name, (which
Latham had done in English,) he obtained the credit of being the
founder of the genus Ibis, but unjustly, as he included in it all
the smooth and thick-billed Tantali. To Illiger belongs the
merit of having first made the distinction between them, and
Cuvier, Vieillot, Temminck, and most others have followed his
course, though some German authors call the restricted genus
Falcinellus. The present family was instituted by Illiger under
the name of Falcati. Vieillot and Ranzani adopted it under the
name of Falcirostres. Boie called it of the Ibides," but Cuvier
”
and Latreille placed the two genera of which it is composed within
the respective limits of the two families which they connect, and
which they called Cultrirostres and Longirostres. Although Mr.
Vigors and the modern English school have not adopted it,
(probably because it interfered with their whimsical quinary
66
VOL. IV.I

34
GLOSSY IBIS.
•
arrangement,) they do not dismember it, but force the whole into
their family Ardeidæ, with which even Ibis has, it is true, more
real, though less apparent affinity than with Scolopacidæ : as for
Tantalus there could be no doubt. Goldfuss has done the same.
The Tantalidæ all have a very long bill, stout at the base,
subulate, falcate, and cylindrical at tip, the edges bent in and
sharp. Their corneo-membranous tongue is remarkably short,
flat, cuneate-acuminate, entire, posteriorly furcate-emarginate.
Their face is destitute of feathers, and their throat somewhat
dilatable into a pouch. Their neck is long. Their feet long,
.
equilibrate, and always four-toed: the naked space of the tibia
considerable : the toes long, bordered with a narrow membrane
connecting the fore toes at base. The hind toe is articulated
with the tarsus low down, and is half as long as the middle,
bearing with its whole length on the ground. The wings are
moderate, obtuse, tubercular. The tail short, composed of but
twelve feathers. The falcate shape of the bill will at once
distinguish them from any of the Ardeidæ; and the nakedness of
the face from the Scolopacidæ.
The Ibis may be known from the true Tantalus by having a
comparatively slender bill, depressed and curved from the base;
instead of being very stout at the base, compressed, and curved
only towards the tip. In Ibis, the upper mandible is deeply
furrowed its whole length, and entire. In Tantalus it is not
furrowed, and is notched. The nostrils are pervious and wide
open in the latter; half-closed by a membrane in the former.
The head is warty and entirely bald in Tantalus, while in Ibis the
nakedness generally extends over the face and throat merely.
Tantalus only contains four species, one in each of the five
divisions of the globe, Europe excepted. In Ibis there are about
twenty well ascertained species, three inhabiting the United
States, of which the present is the only one that ever visits

GLOSSY IBIS.
35
Europe. In South America are found several beautiful species.
The true Ibises may be subdivided into two secondary groups;
those with the tarsi reticulated, and those which like the present
species have them scutellated. The former have shorter feet, and
by their stouter bill, and the more extended nudity of the face,
approach nearest to the Tantali. Temminck wishes to divide
them into the sections Sylvains and Riverains. Dr. Wagler distri-
butes them into three sections, which he calls Ibides lepopodiæ,
Ibides aspido-lepopodiæ, and Ibides aspidopodiæ! this last section being
formed for our species alone, principally on account of its having
the middle toe-nail pectinated.
In the Ibises, as in their kindred Tantali, the females are
considerably smaller than the males, but perfectly like them in
colours. The young differ greatly from the adults until the third
year. Their moult is annual and regular..
They are dull and stupid birds, fearless and allowing of a very
close approach, so that they are easily shot. They frequent
inundated places, the shores of lakes and rivers, and particularly
grounds just left bare by floods, where their favourite food
abounds. They live in flocks, but when once paired the sexes
remain united for life. They feed on insects, worms, mollusca,
and the Ibises also on vegetable substances : they search their
food in mud, and often throw it up with their bill, catching it as
it descends in their throat. Shells, even of considerable size,
they swallow entire, trusting to the muscular power of their
stomach to crush them, for which their bill is too weak. The
Tantali are also well known to use their powerful bills against
fishes and reptiles, but the true Ibis never, notwithstanding the
popular belief to the contrary. When satisfied with feeding,
they retire for digestion to the highest trees, where they stand in
an erect posture, resting their heavy bill upon their breast. The
Ibides more than the Tantali migrate periodically and to vast

36
GLOSSY IBIS.
distances. The habit of resting upon trees, as indeed the whole
animal economy (a thing never sufficiently considered in the
formation of natural families,) of the Ibis separate them from the
Scolopacidæ. They are monogamous; build on high trees, both
sexes assisting in the construction of the nest : the female lays
two or three whitish eggs, which she alone incubates, but is then
fed by the male, and both feed the young, which require for a
long period the care of the parents, and do not leave the nest till
able to flutter. They walk slowly, often sinking deeply in the
mud while watching for prey: their gait is measured, and they
never run rapidly. Their flight is heavy, but high and protracted.
Their voice is loud and monotonous. In domesticity, like many
other birds, they become omnivorous. As to anatomical con-
formation, the Ibises resemble the genera of Scolopacidæ : a very
thick muscular stomach occupies nearly two-thirds of the anterior
capacity of the abdomen : the swelling of the oesophagus at its
origin is considerable and very glandulous: the intestines form
an elliptic mass, composed of a double spiral, besides first a turn
bordering the gizzard; they measure upwards of three feet in
length in the species we treat of. There are two rather short
and obtuse cæcums.
The Bay or Glossy Ibis is twenty-six inches in length, and
more than three feet in extent. The bill is of a greenish lead
colour, somewhat reddish at tip, and varies much in length in
different specimens,—the longest we have measured was five and
a half inches from the corners of the mouth : in many it is but
four inches : it is slender, thicker at base, and higher than broad,
rather compressed and obtusely rounded at tip, and less arcuated
than in the other North American species; the upper mandible
is somewhat longer than the lower, thickened and subangulated at
base, and flattened at its origin: two deep furrows run from the
nostrils to the extremity, dividing it into three portions; the edges

GLOSSY IBIS.
37
of both mandibles are quite entire, and being bent in, they form
together when closed another deep channel : the upper mandible
is filled inside to a great extent with the bony substance of the
bill, so as to be hardly concave. The under mandible follows
exactly the curve of the upper, and is but half as high on the
sides: it is strongly canaliculated below from the base to the tip;
the channel from the tip to the middle is narrow, but then widens
considerably, and is extremely wide at base, where it is filled by
a naked membrane forming a kind of jugular pouch. The nostrils
are placed near the base of the mandible, at the origin of the
lateral furrows, and are oblong, narrow, longitudinal, furnished
in the upper part with a naked membrane. The tongue is
sagittate and less than three-fourths of an inch from the acute
point of its lateral lobe to its tip: the jugular pouch is dusky: the
small naked part of the face, the lora and region around the eyes
are of a greenish gray, which passes into whitish on the limits
of the feathers: the irides are dark brown. The crown of the
head and cheeks are of a brownish black with purplish reflections;
the throat immediately below the pouch is of the same colour,
though somewhat less brilliant, and with more green reflections ;
the feathers of the head are pointed, those of the occiput being
moreover suberectile : the whole base of the plumage is of a pale
sooty gray. The feathers of the back and wing-coverts are com-
pact and rounded; those of the inferior parts are rather loose
in texture at their margins: hind head, neck, upper portion of the
back, inner wing-coverts to the shoulder of the wing, and all the
internal parts of the body, together with the thighs, of a vivid
brownish chesnut, very brilliant and purplish on the interscapular
region : lower portion of the back, rump, vent, tail and wings
entirely, including the upper and lower coverts and the long
axillary feathers, glossy golden green, with purple reflections,
except the primaries, which are pure golden green. The wings
a
VOL. IV.-K

38
GLOSSY IBIS.
are one foot long, and when closed reach precisely to the tip of the
tail, which is four and a half inches in length, and even at the tip:
the first primary is hardly shorter than the third, the second
longest. The feet are rather slender, and the tarsus much longer
than the middle toe: their colour is greenish lead, somewhat
reddish at the joints : tarsus scutellated, four inches long; the
naked part of the tibia nearly three inches; the toes are slender,
the middle without the nail is two and a half, and the hind toe
one inch long : the nails are long and slender, but truncated and
of a dark horn colour: the middle one is the longest, and slightly
curved outwards, dilated on the inner side to a thin edge, which
is irregularly and broadly pectinated. This character is particu-
larly worthy of remark, inasmuch as none of the genus but this
exhibit it, and it may be of great use in deciding at once whether
mummies belong to this species or not, though we regret that no
one appears ever to have thought of having recourse to it to
determine this controverted question.
The adult female is perfectly similar to the male in all except
size, being very sensibly smaller.
Under two years of age they resemble the adult, but the
head and neck are of a much darker colour, the chesnut having
nothing vivid, but rather verging upon blackish brown, and all
speckled with small dashes of white disposed longitudinally on the
margins of the feathers, and disappearing gradually as the bird
advances in age: the under parts and the thighs are of a blackish
gray, more or less verging upon chesnut according to age, the back
acquiring its brilliant colours in the same manner. It is in this
state that most authors, Brisson especially, have described their
Numenius viridis, which for a long time usurped the privilege of
somewhat representing the type of the species.
The young has these white lines longer and more numerous,
and the lower parts of a darker blackish gray.
а.

GLOSSY IBIS.
39
This bird does not appear in its full plumage until the third
year, and is so different from the adult as to furnish an excuse
for those who in that state have considered it as a distinct species.
The bill is brown: the feathers of the head and of the throat are
dark brownish with a whitish margin, wider in proportion as the
bird is younger: the breast, belly, vent, under tail-coverts and
thigh-feathers are grayish brown or slate colour: the lower
portion of the back, wings, and tail of a somewhat golden green,
passing into reddish, with but very little gloss in specimens under
one year old, and richer as they advance in age. The feet are
wholly blackish.
No bird ranges more widely over the globe than the Glossy
Ibis: it has long been known to inhabit Europe, Asia, Oceanica,
and Africa, where it gained its celebrity. It is now proclaimed
as American, though we are not able to tell how numerous or
extended the species may be on this continent. We can hardly
doubt, however, that it is found along almost all the shores of
North and South America, though far from common in any of
these States. From the fact of this bird having been known to
stray occasionally from Europe to far distant Iceland, we may
infer that the individuals met with in the United States are
merely stragglers from that part of the world, just as the Scolopax
grisea of the same plate is an American bird well known to push
its accidental migrations as far as the old continent.
Lest the discovery of the Glossy Ibis on the continent of Ame-
rica should give weight to an erroneous supposition of Vieillot, we
think proper to mention that the Cayenne Ibis of Latham, Tantalus
cayanensis, Gmel., represented by Buffon, pl. enl. 820, (Vieillot's
own unseen Ibis sylvatica) is by no means this bird, but a real
species examined by us, and which must be called Ibis cayanensis.
Let it come whence it may, the Glossy Ibis is only an occasional
visitant of the United States, appearing in small flocks during the

40
GLOSSY IBIS.
spring season at very irregular periods, on the coasts of the middle
states. The specimen Mr. Ord described, and which produced a
strong sensation even among experienced gunners and the oldest
inhabitants as a novelty, was shot on the seventh of May, 1817,
at Great Egg Harbour, and we have seen others from the same
locality and obtained at the same season, as also from Maryland
and Virginia. A beautiful specimen preserved in the American
Museum at New York, was shot a few miles from that city in
June, 1828. In central Italy they arrive periodically about the
middle of April, or the beginning of May, and pass a month
among us, after which they disappear entirely, and a pair of the
Glossy Ibis is of very rare occurrence, though they have been
known to remain here so late as August. A few pairs are brought
every year in spring to the market of Rome, and in Tuscany and
near Genoa they are more plentiful. The Italian and United
States specimens that have come under my observation were all
adults. During their stay among us they occupy places near
marshes and grounds subject to be overflowed, where there are
no trees, but abundance of grass, and plenty of their favourite
food. They search for this collected in flocks of from thirty to
forty, and explore the ground with great regularity, advanc-
ing in an extended line, but closely side by side : when they wish
to leave one side of the meadow for another, they do not take
wing, but walk to the selected spot. When they have alighted
on a newly discovered rich spot of ground, they may be observed
on it for hours, continually boring the mud with their bill. They
never start and run rapidly like the Curlew and Sandpiper, but
always walk with poised and measured steps, so that Ælian says
the Ibis's motions can only be compared to those of a delicate
virgin. The body is kept almost horizontal, the neck much bent,
like the letter S, and lifting their feet high. If alarmed, or when
about to depart, they rise to wonderful heights, ascending first in

GLOSSY IBIS.
41
an inclined but straight flight, and then describing a wide spiral,
the whole flock are heard to cry out in a loud tone, their voice
resembling that of Geese : finally having reached what they con-
sider the proper height, taking a horizontal direction, they soon
disappear from the sight: their flight is vigorous and elevated,
their pectoral muscles being very thick: they fly with the neck
and legs extended horizontally, like most Waders, and as they
float along, send forth from time to time a low and very hoarse
sound. Their food consists chiefly of small aquatic testaceous
mollusca, and they do not disdain such small worms and insects
as they may meet with : they are supposed to live chiefly on
Leeches, (whence their Tuscan name Mignattajo,) but erroneously,
none of these having ever been found in their stomachs either
by Prof. Savi or myself. From what is observed in Europe, the
regular migration of these birds appears to be in the direction of
south-west and north-east. Every circumstance leads to the
belief that they come to us in central Italy through Sardinia and
Corsica from the coasts of Barbary, and continue their journey
hence to the vast marshes of eastern Europe and the Caspian
Sea, where they are well known to breed, though nothing is yet
ascertained of their mode of propagation. Be this as it may,
the
Glossy Ibis in the north and west of Europe is a very rare bird,
and merely a straggler, whilst it is common at its passage in
Poland, Hungary, southern Russia, Turkey and Greece, especially
the islands of the Archipelago. It is found also in Austria and
Bavaria, and in other parts of Germany, especially on the Da-
nube; and occasionally near the lakes of Switzerland, but hardly
ever in Holland, the north of France, or England. In Sweden it
is also met with, though extremely rare: it has been observed in
Gothland, along the marshes of the interior parts of the Island,
and been killed in Scania : it is registered among the rare birds
that visit Iceland. It has been found common along the rivers of
VOL. IV.-L

42
GLOSSY IBIS.
.
the Islands of Java and the Celebes; is periodically known during
seven months in Egypt, coming in October and disappearing in
March : it is later in coming, and disappears after, and in quite a
different direction from the white sacred kind : like this they
follow the overflowing of the Nile, retiring gradually as the
water becomes too deep. It is very common about the Black,
and especially the Caspian Seas, the great rendezvous and breed-
ing place of Waders, where appears to be their chief quarters,
and whence they spread into Siberia and Tartary. Great numbers
are also met with in the Ural Desert. The Arabs in Egypt kill
the Glossy Ibis by shooting them, and catch many in nets, so
that in autumn the markets of the cities of Lower Egypt, that of
Damietta especially, are abundantly furnished with Ibises of this
species, as well as the White, now no longer sacred, which are
exposed for sale with the heads cut off. When taken alive, these
birds appear really very low spirited, and reject food: they stand
upright, the body horizontal, the neck much bent, the head
inclined, moving it from right to left, advancing or withdrawing
it, and striking the ground with the point of their bill. They
often stand on one leg like the Stork: are by no means shy, and
will open their bill to defend themselves if you stretch out your
hand, but their bite is scarcely felt.
It should be mentioned that although this is the Black Ibis of
antiquity, it is by no means that of systematical writers, which
they describe as really black, with a red bill and feet.
Such a
species is very seldom if ever seen in Egypt.

43
PECTORAL SANDPIPER.
TRINGA PECTORALIS.
Plate XXIII. Fig. 2.
Pelidna pectoralis, Say, in Long's Exp. I, p. 171.
Tringa pectoralis, Nov. Cat. Birds U. S. Id. Synops. sp. 250. Id. Specch. comp.
Tringa campestris ? Licht. Cat. II, Vogel. p. 74, sp. 764.
Tringa cinclus dominicensis ? Briss. Av. V, p. 219, sp. 12, pl. 24, fig. 1.
Chorlito a cou brun? AZARA, IV, p. 284, sp. 404.
Alouette de mer de St. Domingue, Briss. loc. cit.
Philadelphia Museum.
Tuis humble species, well marked, though closely allied to
several other Sandpipers, is, as well as I can judge, accurately
described and figured by Brisson; but since then unnoticed even
by compilers, his description had become obsolete, when Say
found the bird in the western territory, and we replaced it in the
records of the science. We have since shot it repeatedly on the
shores of New Jersey, where it is common.
The species appears
to be spread throughout the States, extending farther into the
interior than most of its family : beyond the Mississippi it is very
common; many flocks of them were seen by Major Long's party
both in the spring and autumn at Engineer Cantonment, and it
is often met with in small parties on the coasts of the middle
states in the latter part of autumn. It also inhabits the West
Indies, and, if we are correct in our reference to Azara, is found
in Brazil and Montevideo.
Unlike other Sandpipers, this is not addicted to bare sandy
places, but on the contrary is fond of damp meadows, where it
shows some of the habits of the Snipe. Solitary individuals are

44
PECTORAL SANDPIPER.
often seen, starting up from before the sportsman's feet much in
the manner of that bird.
The family to which this bird belongs has been admitted by
all authors, under various names, and comprehending more or
less aberrant genera.
It was first established by Illiger, but he
excluded from it those which by an unimportant deviation are
destitute of a hind toe, which he placed in his artificial family
of Littorales, while he included in it some true Charadridæ on
account of the presence of a rudiment of this member. Vieillot
took the same view, calling the two artificial families Helionomi,
and Ægialites; as did Ranzani and Savi under the names of
Limicole and Tachidrome ; and Mr. Vigors erred in like manner
by distributing the genera between his too extensive families
of Charadriadæ and Scolopacidæ. The arrangement of Cuvier and
Latreille is in this instance much more consonant to nature :
these authors called their better composed, though still far from
perfect family, Longirostres.
This family, which we shall call Limicolæ or Scolopacidæ, is
strictly natural, especially since we have still farther reformed it
by withdrawing the genus Himantopus, with which we had encum-
bered it in our Synopsis. The family now comprises the six
genera Numenius, Tringa, Totanus, Limosa, Scolopax, and Rhynchæa,
all possessing the most marked affinity in form and habits.
The Scolopacidæ have either a moderate or generally a long
bill, slender, feeble, and extremely soft, being partially or entirely
covered with a nervous and sensitive skin: it is nearly cylindrical,
and mostly obtuse at the point. Their face is completely fea-
thered, and their neck of a moderate length and size. The feet,
though rather long, are moderate and quite slender; the tarsus is
scutellated: but the chief character which, combined with the
bill, will always distinguish them from the allied families, consists
in the hind toe, which is short, slender, articulated high up on the

PECTORAL SANDPIPER.
45
tarsus, and the tip hardly touching the ground: in some quite
typical species this toe is entirely wanting, and this fact corrobo-
rates what we have so often repeated in our writings, that the
mode of insertion, or use made of this toe is of more importance
than its being absent or present. In all the Limicolæ the wings
are elongated, falciform, acute and tuberculated; and the tail
rather short.
The females are generally larger than the males, but luckily
for naturalists, similar to them in colour. I say luckily, for as
,
the young differ greatly from the adults, and as the moult which
takes place twice a year produces additional changes in the
confused plumage of most of these birds, sexual diversity, if it
existed, would render the species still more difficult to determine.
All the Scolopacidæ inhabit marshy, muddy places, and around
waters; and never alight on trees. On the ground they run
swiftly. Their food consists of insects, worms, mollusca, and
other aquatic animals, which they seek in the mud, feeling and
knowing where to seize their prey without seeing it, by means of
the delicacy of touch of their bill. They are monogamous;
breed on the ground in grassy marshes, or on the sand; and lay
,
mostly four pyriform eggs, both parents sitting upon them, and
afterwards attending their young with care, though these latter
leave the nest, run about, and pick up food as soon as hatched.
All these habits contrast strongly with those of the Ibis, which
can only be forced into this family on account of the softness of
the bill, and its great similarity to that of the Curlews.
Our genus Tringa is much more extensive than that of most
modern, though much less so than that of former writers, for we
arrange in it all the Scolopacida, whose bill, short, or moderately
so, straight or slightly curved, is soft or flexible for its whole
length, and with the point smooth, depressed, somewhat dilated
and obtuse ; not taking into consideration the feet, especially the
VOL. IV.M

46
PECTORAL SANDPIPER.
hind toe, which we think in this case hardly proper to represent
subgeneric divisions. Ornithologists will perceive at once from
this that our genus thus constituted reunites in a natural group
species that were dispersed by Linné in his genera Tringa Scolo-
pax and Charadrius; and even some that Latham placed in his
restricted genus Numenius. It coincides more nearly with the
better formed genus Tringa of Brisson, and especially of Vieillot,
Temminck, and Ranzani, but with the addition of their Arenaria
or Calidris; and with the same addition, is wholly included in the
Actitis of Illiger; although that learned systematist does not cite
under his comprehensive genus a single typical Tringa, and pro-
bably never examined one, as they do not possess the character
he assigns to the group “pedes colligati.” Our Tringa embraces
"
and is formed of the groups Calidris, Pelidna, Falcinellus, Machetes,
Eurynorhyncus and Arenaria of Cuvier; and we subdivide it pretty
nearly into these very groups, which we regard as subgenera,
adding moreover to them another which we call Hemipalama.
All our Tringæ have a bill compressed at the base, with both
mandibles furrowed each side their whole length, the lower a
little the shorter: the nostrils are in the furrows, basal, linear, and
pervious, but half closed by a membrane : their tongue is mode-
rately long, slender, subfiliform, canaliculated above, entire and
acute. The tarsus is slender, longer, or subequal to the middle
toe, and always scutellated: the fore toes rather elongated, and
slender, the hind toe when present, is extremely short, slender,
much elevated, and hardly reaching the ground: the nails are
moderate, compressed, curved and acute. The wings moderate
for this family, though in reality long, with the first primary
longest; the tertials and scapulars shorter than the primaries.
The tail is rather short, subequal to the wings when closed, and
always of twelve feathers and no more.
With the exception of the subgenera Falcinellus, distinguished

PECTORAL SANDPIPER.
47
toe.
by an arched bill, and Calidris, by a short, straight one, and both
three-toed, all our Tringæ are tetradactyle, having the short hind
With the exception of my subgenus Hemipalama, whose cha-
racter is to have the fore toes all connected at base by a membrane,
and of Machetes, which has only the outer ones connected, all the
Tringæ have the feet cleft to the base. Of the species that remain
after the separation of these four well marked groups, and which
are still the most numerous, we form our subgenus Tringa. We
must not however pass by unnoticed the Eurynorhyncus of Nilsson,
a group so important as perhaps to merit generic distinction :
it is the Platalea pygmæa of Linné, of which a single specimen
of uncertain nativity is known.* In this, by an extreme develop-
ment of the Tringa character, the bill is remarkably flattened and
widened at tip, somewhat in the manner of the Spoonbill.
In the Sandpipers the female is similar to the male, being only
somewhat larger. The young differ from the adult, and they
moult twice a year, changing greatly the colours of their plumage.
These are a mixture of white and cinereous, changing in summer
to rufous and black.
The Sandpipers are maritime birds that live in flocks, often-
times composed of different species, on sandy beaches or muddy
shores, preferring mostly salt water. They migrate with the
changes of the seasons along coasts and rivers, and are seldom
seen in the temperate climates of North America and Europe,
except during autumn, winter, and more especially in spring, when
they are the most numerous. They retire to the north to breed,
which they do socially among the grass near the water, but never
in our climates. They feed on insects, mollusca, and other small
animals, which they seek in soft ground by thrusting in their
flexible bill, or among the rejectamenta of the sea. They run
* See Thunberg, Av. Sy. Holm. 1816, p. 194, tab. vi.

48
PECTORAL SANDPIPER.
rapidly, and generally fly near the surface of the water in a
straight line, and during the day, only short distances. Their
flesh, though esculent, is by no means palatable, being too fishy :
they grow amazingly fat in autumn, though their fat is not firm,
but very oily. They are caught however in Italy by spreading
nets on their feeding grounds, and in the United States great
numbers are destroyed by the gun.
Spread over all the globe, some of the species even, the Sand-
pipers are very difficult to distinguish from one another, marked
traits being few, and detailed descriptions applying mostly to
individual specimens. The species have been wantonly multiplied
by superficial observers, and too much reduced perhaps by scien-
tific men.
We must chiefly rely on the relative dimensions of
the bill and the length of the tarsus in fixing them. In North
America are found at least ten of the subgenus Tringa, most of
which likewise inhabit Europe, that has eight: the Pectoral
Sandpiper is the only one besides the T. pusilla of those American
registered in our Synopsis that is not found in Europe.
This new species, though it is quite as large, if not larger than
the Tringa alpina has a shorter bill; which is besides reddish at
base, distinguishing it at once from all the species it could be
confounded with, since each of them has the bill entirely black :
the T. maritima and T. platyrhynca have a similarly coloured bill,
but are otherwise too well marked to be mistaken ; the former
by the restricted naked space of the tibia, and the latter by the
depressed form of its bill.
The Pectoral Sandpiper is eight and a half inches long, some
females being nearly nine : the bill is little more than an inch
long, compressed throughout, reddish yellow at base, the rest
black, and with a few Snipe-like punctures near the tip. The
crown of the head is black, each feather margined with rufous :
the orbits, a line over the eye, and the forehead narrowly are

PECTORAL SANDPIPER.
49
a
.
whitish, minutely dotted with blackish ; the irides are dark :
a very distinct brown line passes from the eye to the upper
mandible: the cheeks, neck above, sides of the neck, and beneath
down to the breast are grayish with a rufous tinge, and beautifully
streaked with blackish, occupying the middle of each feather,
along the shaft: surrounded and well defined in perfect speci-
mens,) by these markings the throat and chin are of a purer
white than in other Tringæ : the remaining lower parts from
the breast to the lower tail-coverts, including the flanks and
long axillary feathers are white, the base of the plumage dark
plumbeous, and a few blackish streaks along the shafts of some
of the flank and vent feathers : the feathers of the neck above,
owing to the circumstance of the blackish central line widening
considerably, become gradually dusky, the feathers there being
merely bordered with the grayish buff. The interscapular region,
the scapulars and small wing-coverts are shining black with
greenish reflections; they are margined with ferruginous, and
near the exterior tips with whitish: the lower part of the back,
the rump, and the upper tail-coverts are jet black and without
margins. The wings are five inches long, lined with white,
which predominates on the under wing-coverts: these are however
a little varied with blackish and gray: the primaries are dusky
as well as the outer wing-coverts, and are slightly edged with
whitish : the shaft of the outer quill is white; of the others
entirely dusky: the first primary is longest, and after the second
they decrease rapidly. The tail is two inches to the tip of the
lateral feathers, and a quarter of an inch more to the tip of the
middle ones, which are longest by that much, and somewhat
tapering, and are black edged with rufous, while the others are
pale dusky, margined with white all around the tip. The feet
are greenish yellow, the bare space above the knee five-eighths of
an inch: the tarsus very nearly one inch, and equal to the middle
VOL. IV.-N

50
PECTORAL SANDPIPER.
toe; the outer toe is connected at the very base with the middle
by a very small membrane hardly visible in young individuals,
which is also the case with T. platyrhynca: the nails are of a
blackish horn colour. Such is this bird as it appears in the
end of summer and early in autumn on the New Jersey coasts,
still apparently in its perfect nuptial dress, or nearly so. Mr.
Say informs us that all the individuals of the many flocks
observed at Engineer Cantonment both in the spring and autumn
were of equal size; and we have also found the sexes to agree in
this respect, perhaps more than is usual in other Sandpipers : in
the spring dress, according to the same author, the colour of the
upper part of the bird is much paler, almost destitute of black,
and the feathers margined with pale cinereous. The upper part
.
of the head is always darker than any part of the neck, and
margined with ferruginous: the plumage of the neck beneath and
the breast does not appear to undergo so much change as that of
the upper part of the body. We have not seen the bird in this
plumage, but it will be evident to every ornithologist conversant
with the Sandpipers that the specimens described by Say were
still in the winter dress, and we may conclude that the changes
in this species are analogous to those of its allies.
Several specimens of both sexes that we shot in New Jersey,
evidently young birds, as they were killed at the same season as
the adults described, are considerably paler and duller, the tints
being blended and ill defined: the white even of the throat is
dingy, the quills and tail-feathers almost uniformly dusky and
destitute of margins: they have not the least trace of the outer
toe membrane.

51
RED-BREASTED SNIPE.
SCOLOPAX GRISEA.
Plate XXIII. Fig. 3.
sp. 205.
See Wilson's American Ornithology, Red-breasted Snipe, Scolopax noveboracensis, Vol.
VII, p. 49, pl. 58. fig. 1, for the summer dress.
Scolopax grisea, GMEL. Syst. I, p. 658, sp. 27. Lath. Ind. II, p. 724, sp. 33. Suppl.
I, p. 444, sp. 42, winter dress. TEMM. Man. Orn. II, p. 679. Nob. Obs. Wils.
Id. Cat. and Syn. Birds U. S. sp. 267, Id. Specch. Comp. sp. 206. Id.
Monog. Scolop. in Obs. Cuv. p. 115, sp. 2.
Scolopax noveboracensis, GMEL. Syst. I, p. 658, sp. 28. LATH. Ind. II, p. 723, sp. 32,
summer dress.
Scolopax Paykulli, Nilss. Orn. Suec. II, p. 106, sp. 186, tab. xi.
Scolopax leucophoea, VIEILL. Gal. Ois. II, p. 110, tab. 291, changing to the summer dress.
Scolopax griseа, VIEILL. Nouv. Dict. winter dress.
Totanus griseus, VIEILL. Nouv. Dict. winter dress.
Totanus ferrugineicollis, VIEILL. summer dress.
Totanus noveboracensis, SABINE, Zool. App. Franklin's Exp. p. 687, summer dress.
Macroramphus griseus, LEACH, Cat. Mus. Brit.
Limosa scolopacea, Say, in Long's Exp. II, p. 170, winter plumage.
Beccaccia grigia, Ranz. Elem. III, pt. VIII, p. 162, sp. 5.
Becassine grise, VIEILL. Nouv. Dict. III, p. 358. .
Becassine ponctuée, TEMM. loc. cit.
Brown Snipe, PENN. Arct. Zool. II, sp. 369. Lath. Syn. V, p. 154, sp. 26. Id. Gen. Hist
IX, p. 216, sp. 25. Mont. Orn. Dict. with a good fig. in the Suppl. winter dress.
.
Red-breasted Snipe, Penn. Arct. Zool. II, sp. 368. Lath. Syn. V, p. 153, sp. 26. In.
PENN
Gen. Hist. IX, p. 215, sp. 24, summer dress.
Graubraune Schnepfe, MEYER & Wolf, Tasch. III, p. 46.
Philadelphia Museum.
We can add nothing to the excellent account given by our
predecessor of this remarkable species, but as he only figured it
in its summer and more familiar dress, our representation of the

52
RED-BREASTED SNIPE.
winter plumage will not be thought superfluous upon referring to
our elaborate synonymy, and still less if we bear in mind that
even a distinct genus has been instituted for it in this vesture,
when it chanced to come under more critical inspection. We
shall therefore merely dwell upon the literary and systematical
history of the species, referring the reader to Wilson for its
natural one.
In its winter plumage the adult Red-breasted Snipe, then called
Brown Snipe, is so different from the young and from the perfect
bird in summer dress, that it is no wonder that it should have
been considered a distinct species, especially as it is the only
Snipe that undergoes such changes, and analogy could therefore
no longer serve to guide us. While passing gradually from one
plumage to another, the feathers assume so many appearances as
to excuse in some degree even the errors of those who have been
led to multiply the nominal species by taking a wrong view of
the genus to which it belonged.
Pennant, soon followed by Latham, was the first to make known
our Snipe, which they described in both vestures, and the bird was
registered accordingly in the ill digested compilation of Gmelin.
Wilson perceived that the two supposed species were one and the
same, retaining for it the name of Scolopax noveboracensis, which
appertained originally to the summer dress alone. That given
to the winter dress is now however with more propriety adopted
by all modern ornithologists. As some birds of the old continent
are known occasionally to stray to the American shores,* so this
common American bird visits accidentally the north of Europe,
and especially its islands. There are several instances of its
having been killed in the British isles, where more than one
* The Tringa pugnax of Europe, we are informed by Mr. Cooper, who has compared
the specimen with one of this species from Austria in analogous plumage, has been shot
on Long Island in the State of New York.

RED-BREASTED SNIPE.
53
English specimen is preserved, small parties even of these birds
having been seen there at different periods and in their different
dresses. But these instances are by no means so frequent as
reported in authors, the Limosa rufa and Tringa islandica having
been mistaken for it. A specimen in ambiguous plumage, stray-
ing into Sweden from the marshes of Lapland, (where they may be
more common) afforded Nilsson the opportunity of contributing
his part to the confusion, but as he gave a figure, besides
describing the bird with his characteristic accuracy, it was at
once detected.
Since Temminck, it is only wilful obstinacy or
gross ignorance that can persist in regarding as species the
different states of a bird so well marked in its natural genus as
to deserve a subgenus for itself, and still more on account of
its habits than its conformation, (notwithstanding Temminck's
statements to the contrary,) as will be evident from the following
generalities on the genus Scolopax.
This genus, as instituted by Linné, and adopted by authors
from Latham to Wilson, was, like Tringa, a great receptacle,
though with the advantage of not containing a single species
that is not still admitted as of at least the same family. But
however extensive it may have been, had Linné been consistent
in arranging under it all the species that possessed the character
he assigned to it, he ought to have added to it the greater part of
his Tringa, many of which took rank unperceived in both genera.
Cuvier rectified this course, thus forming a vast genus Scolopax,
more extensive than our whole family of Scolopacidæ. His sub-
genus Scolopax corresponds, however, exactly to my genus of that
name, which I subdivide into three natural subgenera, Rusticola,
Scolopax, and Macroramphus, which is the present bird. Illiger first
reduced the genus Scolopax within proper limits, but including,
is true, Rhynchæa, since established by Cuvier as a genus. Modern
ornithologists in general agree with us, except that some, as
VOL. IV.-0

54
RED-BREASTED SNIPE.
а
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 Tringa. 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

RED-BREASTED SNIPE.
55
the others, and projects beyond the toe, which is not the case in
the Woodcocks, which have that nail quite blunt and drawn back.
On the other hand, Macroramphus agrees with Rusticola in the
tail, that part having the regular number of twelve feathers,
whilst in the typical Snipes the number of feathers as well as
their shape varies amazingly in the different, and otherwise
strikingly similar species. Some have it of twelve, others of
fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, and one even of twenty-four feathers, a
number before unheard of in any other bird whatsoever. In all
these groups the tail is nevertheless short, equal, or more or less
rounded. In both the groups of Snipes the first quill is the
longest; but in the species of Woodcocks the quills vary in length
and shape, affording the same anomalies and useful marks as the
tail-feathers in the true Snipes. In the European Woodcock the
primaries are of equal breadth and the two first longest, while in
the American the three outer quills are very narrow, linear, and
the fourth and fifth longest.
The females in this genus are similar in colour to the males,
but larger, considerably so in the American Woodcock. They
moult twice in the year, but the present is the only one that
varies much with age or season.
It will not be wronging any to call them all stupid birds,
though the present is less so: this only of its genus is grega-
rious, associating and flying in numerous flocks. Like the Snipes,
and contrary to the Woodcocks, they do not dwell in damp
woods or forests, but frequent open marshy grounds and morasses :
but unliket the Snipes, they prefer the vicinity of the sea.
They might indeed be called salt-water Snipes, in contradis-
tinction to the others, which are fresh-water Snipes. Their flight
is high, rapid, and irregular, having nothing of the heaviness of
the Woodcocks. The flesh of all these birds is exquisite food,
and much sought after.

56
RED-BREASTED SNIPE.
The Rusticola of Vieillot, which we adopt as a subgenus for the
Woodcocks, is distinguished, and even from most water birds, by
the want of nudity of the tibia, which is completely covered with
feathers as in land birds. It contains but the two species alluded
to, that are closely allied, though they have specific traits that
might constitute genera in other cases. This shows the difficulty
in our science of knowing where to seek for generic and specific
traits in the different groups. The two species of Woodcocks
vary greatly in their respective habits, one being a summer, the
other a winter visitant in temperate climates, and one of course
retiring south, the other northward from them. Some authors
prefer for this group the name of Scolopax, because it is to its type
that the Greeks gave this name.
Our subgenus Scolopax, of which we have published a mono-
graph in our Observations on the second edition of Cuvier's
Animal Kingdom, is composed of nine or ten species, all of which,
with their characteristic details, will be carefully figured in our
inedited work “Lithographic Monography of obscure genera of
Aquatic Birds.” In these the tail-feathers furnish the specific
characters. The number, shape, and disposition of these afford a
sure clue, as in Numenius it is the rump, under wing-coverts, and
long axillary feathers which are our best guide to a knowledge of
the species. Without this clue they cannot well be distinguished,
and those who undertake to make phrases with this object in a
group to which they have not the clue, will only make pedantic
nonsense, as is done every day. This very natural group is
called Telmatias by Boie, and Gallinago by the English.
As for Macroramphus, as we have observed, it forms the tran-
sition to Totanus, which would be enough to show the impropriety
of Boie's course in considering the genus Scolopax as a family of
itself. Temminck's name of Becassine Chevalier is peculiarly
descriptive, and alone contradicts his unjust censure of Dr. Leach’s

RED-BREASTED SNIPE.
57
a
genus, a group whose scientific characters were first laid down by
our friend Mr. Say, though he referred the species to Limosa.
In its winter plumage the Red-breasted Snipe instead of the
mottled garb in which it is familiar, is of an uniform dusky-
cinereous: the specimen lying before us is eleven and a half
inches long and nineteen in extent. The bill is two and a quarter
inches long, of a dull greenish, the tip is black, and obtains
the strongly marked dorsal groove that so well distinguishes a
Scolopax from the allied genera. The prevailing dusky-cinereous
colour extends over the head, neck and wing-coverts, the back
and scapulars being of a lighter dusky-cinereous, and each feather
darker on its margin and tip: a broad line from the upper man-
dible passing over the eye, and the lower orbit, are white: between
the eye and bill is a dusky line; the irides are brown: the cheeks,
throat and upper portion of the breast are pale cinereous, each
feather being margined with whitish : the lower part of the back,
the rump and upper tail-feathers are white, beautifully and closely
fasciated with black: the breast, belly and thighs are white,
the sides being spotted and waved with blackish : the lower
tail-coverts are white with short black bands, narrower than those
of the upper parts. The wings are six inches long : the lesser
.
wing-coverts of the colour of the body, but they are margined
with whitish ; the middle and greater wing-coverts are darker
with pure white margins and a little white along the shafts : the
primaries are plain blackish-dusky, the inner one slightly edged
with white : the secondaries are broadly margined and narrowly
shafted with white : the first quill is longest, the shaft white: the
under wing-coverts and long axillary feathers are white, fasciated
with black. The tail is two and a half inches long, composed of
twelve feathers, all full and rounded, the two middle a little
longer, and marked like the coverts already described, that is
white and densely fasciated with black bands. The feet are of a
:
VOL. IV.P

58
RED-BREASTED SNIPE.
dull green: naked space on the tibia one inch long : tarsus nearly
one inch and a half: middle toe without the nail hardly an inch :
hind toe more than a quarter; the toes webbed at base, the outer
web reaching to the first joint of the outer toes, the inner being
hardly visible.
Wilson's description of the summer plumage being sufficient,
we omit it here, though admitting of much more detail : in few
words it may be stated that however great the apparent difference,
it may be reduced to this: 1. All those parts that are plain
cinereous in winter take on a mottled appearance, being strongly
tinged with reddish, and varied with black and yellowish. 2. The
anterior parts that are white, such as the superciliar line, and
breast, become reddish. The strongly characteristic marks of
the other parts remain unchanged.
The young birds of the year have the plumage above gene-
rally black, the back of the head dusky, and the feathers broadly
margined with bright rufous, the superciliar line, and the inferior
parts are of a dingy white, inclining to rufous; this colour predo-
minates on the breast, where the feathers, as well as on the
flanks and the superciliar line, have numerous dusky dots : the
middle tail-feathers are terminated by reddish.
Notwithstanding the statements of Wilson, we do not perceive
any difference in plumage in the female, which is merely of a
larger size. As the species breeds in high northern latitudes,
,
visiting the temperate regions of America in spring and autumn,
on its passage to and from its winter quarters, it is the more
extraordinary that it should not equally extend these regular
migrations to Europe.
a


2
>>>
s
1
3
Engraved by Alexander Sawson
Drawn from Nature by T. Peal.
.
Wilsons Dhalarope.
Piping Plovers
Shinzo Sandpiper
Phalaropus Milseni.
Char
aradrius Metodus.
Tringa Sehinzú.
24

59
WILSON'S PHALAROPE.
PHALAROPUS WILSONII.
Plate XXIV. Fig. 1, Adult. Plate XXV. Fig. 1, Young.
See Wilson's American Ornithology, Gray Phalarope, Phalaropus lobatus, Vol. IX, p.
72, pl. 73, fig. 2, for a very bad figure and imperfect account; and a much better
one illustrating the same figure in the second edition of the same volume, called by
Mr. Ord, Supplement to the American Ornithology of Wilson, under the name of
Brown Phalarope, Phalaropus lobałus, p. 232.
.
Phalaropus Wilsonii, SABINE, Zool. App. Franklin's Exp. p. 691. Nob. Obs. Wils.
sp. 233. Id. Add. Orn. U. S. in Ann. Lyc. N. Y. II, p. 159. Id. Suppl. Syn. in
Zool. Journ. Lond. ID. Cat. and Syn. Birds U. S. sp. 279. Id. Specch. Comp.
Phalaropus froenatus, VIEILL. Gal. Ois. II, p. 178, pl. 271.
Phalaropus fimbriatus, Temm. Pl. Col. 370.
Lobipes fimbriatus, SELBY and JARDINE, Orn. Ill. 1, Syn. sp. 2, Adult.
Lobipes incanus, SELBY and JARD. Orn. Ill. 1, Syn. Sp. 3, tab. 16. Young.
Phalarope liseré, TEMM. loc. cit.
Phalarope bridé, VIEILL. loc. cit.
American Phalarope, SABINE, loc. cit. LATH. Gen. Hist. X, p. 4, sp. 2.
Philadelphia Museum, Adult. Leadbeater's Collection, Young
This beautiful, and as regards system, so remarkable bird, was
first discovered by Wilson, who, had he lived to publish the
species himself, would doubtless have fixed it on the same firm
basis as in other instances of the kind. But death put an end to
his labours, and to the advantage which science daily realized
from them, when among other important materials this Phalarope
remained in his portfolio. It became the task of friendship to
publish a few rough notes and unfinished sketches, the present
among the rest, and a figure was thus produced impossible to be
recognized except upon actual reference to the specimen itself.

60
WILSON’S PHALAROPE.
The description which accompanied it was as defective as the
figure, the author's pencil notes having been found partly illegible,
and it was marked by him as a Tringa. In a second and much
improved edition, which it has pleased the author to call an
original work, though the plates are identical with the former,
Mr. Ord's description and personal observations are very correct
and ingenious, but the name and synonymes are altogether mis-
applied, through his mistaking it for the Phalaropus hyperboreus.
In a paper published in the Annals of the Lyceum of New York,
I availed myself of the first opportunity that offered to explain the
confusion respecting the three species, and finally distinguished
among them three groups which were exemplified in my Synopsis.
Mr. Sabine was not aware when he applied to this bird the
name of our predecessor, that he was performing not merely an
act of courtesy and respect, but one of justice also towards its
first discoverer. It was only by actual inspection of the specimen
examined by Wilson, and preserved in the Albany Museum, that
we could identify the species, and it does not appear surprising to
us that some who have not thus verified the fact for themselves
should still express doubts, as Baron Cuvier has done by impli-
cation in the new edition of his Règne Animal. We ourselves,
when we first procured the bird, had not the least suspicion
that it was contained in Wilson's work. Every one will therefore
be sensible of the propriety of publishing a new figure, more
needed in fact in this case than if the species had been new.
The description in Sabine's Appendix to Franklin's Expedition
could not however be misunderstood, and Temminck and Vieillot
by its perusal would have spared this bird two synonymes, as they
simultaneously figured and described it in their respective works
under the different names quoted in our list, though Vieillot
perceived it to be the species intended by Wilson. The
authors of the Illustrations of Ornithology did not recognise in
B

WILSON'S PHALAROPE.
61
their Lobipes incanus the young of this, which is not much to be
wondered at; but it is rather extraordinary that writers so justly
scrupulous about the rights of priority should adopt, though
greatly posterior, Temminck's name instead of Sabine's, thus
slighting over one of the best of the few positive zoological labours
of their own countrymen, and after it had been already sanctioned
by strangers.
That the Lobipes incanus is the young of this species, which any
one familiar with the changes of plumage of the Phalaropes might
have suspected, will, it is hoped, be placed beyond future question
by the figure we now give also of it.
If the bill only were considered, this species might with some
propriety be united subgenerically with the P. hyperboreus, but as
by its feet it differs considerably from both the other Phalaropes,
which agree in this particular, we have instituted for it a peculiar
subgenus under the name of Holopodius, which we regard as in
all respects more essentially different from the old groups than
they are from each other. In what respect Mr. Sabine found this
species, which he so well established, intermediate between the
two, we are at a loss to imagine.
In fact, in Holopodius, só opposite to Cuvier's Lobipes both in
name and character, the toes have a narrow border formed by a
subentire membrane; the outer connected to the first joint only;
the inner almost cleft, and the hind toe long and resting on the
ground: the two other groups having the toes broadly bordered with
a deeply scalloped membrane and semipalmated: the hind toe is
very short, the nail only touching the ground. The Lobipes of
Cuvier differs from the Crymophilus of Vieillot only in the shape of
the bill, stout, flattened, and carinated in the latter, slender
and cylindrical in the former, as well as in ours.
Edwards first brought the Phalaropes into notice, and it was
from his works that Linnæus and Brisson registered these singular
VOL. IV.--

62
WILSON'S PHALAROPE.
birds in their general works: the former, however, thrust them
into that storehouse of species, his Tringa, whilst the latter
established for them the genus Phalaropus, than which no group is
more natural, and in our opinion equivalent to a family.
Latham and all modern authors have retained very properly
this genus in their systems. But if they are so far unanimous,
they are greatly at variance when they come to assign it a place,
some referring it to one order or family and some to another.
That these birds belong to the Grallæ or Waders, though still
more aquatic in their habits even than some of the webfooted
birds, does not in my opinion admit of doubt.
Before the recent discovery of the species now under considera-
tion, Phalaropus contained but two real species, out of which as
many had been formed as their changeable plumage exhibits
phases, and what is worse, the nominal species founded on the
one had been confounded with those taken from the other, and
the different plumage of each taken for varieties of its relative, so
that not even the two real species were accurately known apart;
though so different as to form each of them the type of a
peculiar group, in the same manner as we have observed is the
case with the P. wilsonii. They are found in the north of both
continents, the present being peculiar to America, which possesses
them all. Cuvier, losing sight of the strong common tie that con-
nects the Phalaropes, has separated his two groups, Phalaropus and
Lobipes, and has placed the one near Tringa and the other near
Totanus, on account of the analogy of the bill, regarding the
Phalaropus as a pinnate-footed Tringa, and the Lobipes as a pinnate-
footed Totanus. Vieillot, in adopting these groups as genera,
placed them adjoining each other in a separate family, but he
changed Cuvier's names into Crymophilus and Phalaropus, trans-
posing the latter name to the other group, the Lobipes of Cuvier.
All the three known Phalaropes as distinguished by a moderate,
>

WILSON'S PHALAROPE.
63
a
slender, straight and subcylindrical bill: both mandibles are fur-
rowed each side nearly their whole length, and the upper somewhat
curved at the point; the lower is hardly shorter, quite straight,
and the point subulate. The nostrils are in the furrows, basal,
longitudinal, linear, half closed by a membrane. Their head is
small, completely feathered, compressed and rounded above; the
eyes are small, the neck well proportioned, and the body roundish.
The feet are moderately long, four-toed; the naked space on the
tibia rather extensive; the tarsus as long as the middle toe, mode-
rate, robust, somewhat compressed, and scutellated; the toes are
moderate and rather slender, the three anterior bordered by a fes-
tooned membrane, and the outer at least is always connected at base
to the middle one; the hind toe is short, bordered only on the inside
with a small entire membrane, articulated rather high and inter-
nally, touching the ground at tip: the nails are short, curved, and
acute. The wings long, falciform, and acute, the first primary
being the longest : the quills twenty-five in number. The tail is
short, and consists of twelve feathers, with its under coverts
extending quite to the tip.
The female is but little different from the male, but larger and
handsomer in full plumage. The young are very different from
the adults, and they vary much with age. They moult twice in
the year, their colours changing strangely, which has occasioned
the wanton multiplication of species. Their plumage is close,
thick, abundantly furnished with down, and impermeable to
water. Their colours are principally brownish and reddish,
changing in winter to gray and white, which is always to be found
on their under parts.
Their habits are essentially aquatic. They inhabit the sea-
coasts, the shores of lakes and occasionally of rivers; are grega-
rious, but never collect in large flocks. Probably from being so
seldom met with, they show little dread of mankind, and allow of

64
WILSON'S PHALAROPE.
the nearest approach, and not being alarmed at the report of
a gun, it is easy to kill several without moving from one spot.
Their food consists of aquatic insects and other small animals
that are found in the water. They are strictly monogamous, and
are generally seen in pairs, carrying fidelity to an extreme :
delighting in their peculiar element, they even copulate on the sea,
and reluctantly leave it to build their nest on shore, among
grasses: they lay from four to six eggs, which both sexes incubate,
the male being even more strongly marked on the belly by the
naked places which this causes : they share between them all the
parental duties, and the young leave the nest, run about and swim
as soon as they are hatched. The Phalaropes are hardly ever
seen on dry ground, where, however, they walk and run swiftly,
without the embarrassment of some other birds of less aquatic
propensities. Though certainly the smallest of swimmers, they
perform this operation with great dexterity, resisting the heaviest
waves, or rising over their top, but are never known to dive : they
notwithstanding swim with perfect ease, when they have all the
appearance of a miniature Duck, with their head carried close to
their back. While swimming they dip their bill often in the
water, frequently turning round, with much elegance in all their
motions. Their flight is rapid. Their flesh is oily and unpalatable.
The abode of these diminutive swimmers is the arctic and
polar regions, to which their thick coat of feathers is well adapted.
Hence they migrate in autumn to the temperate regions of both
continents, where they are also seen in spring. They are essen-
tially arctic birds, and breed in the most northern parts of the
world, and although they retire more to the south in winter, yet
their visits to our temperate climates are rare and casual. From
such a combination of traits as are above related it will be
evident that though much restricted in the number of species the
Phalaropes are entitled to a conspicuous rank in classification.

WILSON’S PHALAROPE.
65
They can only be compared with the allied genera Himantopus and
Recurvirostra, and we see how materially they differ from them.
They may be said to connect the Scolopacidæ with the Laridæ,
forming a beautiful link between the order of Waders and that
of the Web-footed birds.
Our subgenus Holopodius, which resembles Lobipes in the bill,
while Crymophilus resembles it in the feet, is furnished with a long,
very slender, smooth, flexible, and cylindrical bill, of equal
breadth throughout, subulate to the tip, with the point narrow,
sharp, and slightly curved: the nostrils are quite basal, and linear-
elongated: the tongue is filiform and acute. The tarsi are elon-
gated, and much compressed, in which it comes nearer to the
ANSERES, and compensates for the other traits which remove it
farther from them than the other Phalaropes. Thus do we find
ourselves baffled in all attempts at a regularly symmetrical or
mathematical arrangement, Nature acknowledges no artificial
nor contracted limits. The toes are long, and by no means semi-
palmated, the outer being connected to the middle only as far as
the first joint, and the inner almost divided; the bordering mem-
brane narrow and subentire; the hind toe long, and resting on
the ground. The wings are long, even for the genus, and the
tertials very long, reaching nearly to the tip of the primaries
when the wings are closed. The tail is moderate, being neither
so long as in Crymophilus, nor so short as that of Lobipes. The
general form is slender, and together with the bill and other
traits, gives this bird a strong resemblance to the Totani, a bare
analogy, however, which we should not with Cuvier mistake for
affinity.
The American or Wilson's Phalarope has been so well described
from the recent specimen, by Mr. Ord, as not to be susceptible
of improvement, and the following description is merely intended
VOL. IV.R

66
WILSON'S PHALAROPE.
.
to elucidate our figure, which represents of the natural size a
beautiful female in the perfect plumage of spring. This indivi-
dual was nine and a half inches long and sixteen in extent of
wings. The form of the bill we have described above: it is
black, and more than an inch and a quarter long, though only a
line in thickness: the irides are dark brown. The upper part of
the head is of a bluish delicate pale ash colour, the hind head and
that part of the neck adjoining it are whitish; a white stripe
passes over the eye, and beneath it is a spot of the same color :
a large curving band of black includes the eye and spreads out
towards the nucha, descending a good space down the neck, and
gradually passes into a reddish brown, which becomes the color
of the sides of the neck; this tint deepens into bright chestnut on
the back part of the neck, and descends on each side, thus min-
gling with the plumage of the back and scapulars, which are dark
ash, each feather slightly tipped with whitish : the upper tail-
coverts are ash color. The throat and sides of the head to the
black mark, and all beneath, including the lower tail-coverts, are
pure white, somewhat tinged with rufous on the lower part of the
neck beneath. The wings are five inches long, and in color dark
ash, larger coverts and secondaries very slightly edged with
white, under coverts white, most of the smaller wing-coverts
being marked with ferruginous: the upper tail feathers are
tinged with reddish at their tips, and the under marked with
white on their inner webs. The feet are dark plumbeous; the
claws of a dark horn color, the naked part of the tibia is nearly
an inch long, the tarsus more than one inch and a quarter,
and sharpish; the middle toe without the nail is scarcely one
inch, and the remarkably long hind toe five sixteenths without
the nail.
There are fewer variations caused in this Phalarope than in the
:

WILSON'S PHALAROPE.
67
:
others by sex and season: the young however is surprisingly dif-
ferent for which reason we have figured it also of the full size.
The bill is like that of the adult, somewhat gaping beyond the
middle : the face is whitish mixed with dusky, and with a dusky
stripe from the bill to the eye: the crown, neck above, back and
wings are dusky brown, darker on the middle of the feathers :
the rump upper tail-coverts and flanks broadly are white; the
throat is pure white: the sides of the neck are tinged with rusty :
the neck beneath and breast are white, slightly tinged with red-
dish-dusky; the belly of a purer white with a little dusky; the
vent, andlong lower tail-coverts, which reach to the tip of the tail,
are pure white: the wings are four and three quarter inches long,
the lower coverts white. The scapulars blacker, with pale
rusty edges: the primaries are blackish, with pale brown shafts,
of which the outer is white. The tail is broad and rounded, the
middle and outer feathers somewhat longest ; all of a pale dusky
gray with white shafts, the exterior being also white on the best
part of the inner web. All the tail-feathers are also edged with
white. The feet are reddish black, the tarsus an inch and a
quarter long.
We are acquainted as yet with no peculiarity of this fine Pha-
larope, and even the few facts registered concerning it have been
obscured by the heedlessness of compilers. Though it appears
to extend its migrations more to the south than its congeneric
species, it is decidedly like them, (notwithstanding Temminck's
supposition to the contrary) an Arctic bird, and the only remark-
able circumstance about it is that it should not also be found in
Europe. As far as we know it is exclusively North American,
for the specimen of the young inadvertently said by the authors
of the Ornithological Illustrations to have come from South Ame-
rica, was found in the Vera Cruz market, as appears from their

68
WILSON'S PHALAROPE.
own account.
As for Senegal, it was merely a gratuitous suppo-
sition on the part of Temminck, too rashly converted by the
same English authors into certainty, and it therefore remains
strictly North American, for which country we have, besides
Wilson's and our experience, the unquestioned authorities of
Vieillot and Sabine.

69
SCHINZ'S SANDPIPER.
TRINGA SCHINZII.
Plate XXIV. Fig. 2.
Tringa cinclus var. Say, in Long's Exp. I, p. 172.
Tringa Schinzii, BREHM, Lehrb. Eur. Vog. II, p. 571. Nov. Obs. on Wils. before sp.
213. Id. Cat. and Syn. Birds U. S. sp. 249.
Scolopax pusilla? GMEL. Syst. I, p. 663, sp. 40?
Tringa cinclus var. a minor? BRISS.
Tringa alpina ? VIEILL. (not of authors.)
My colleclion.
In Mr. Say's valuable notes to Long's Expedition, he describes
as follows the bird which we have had carefully represented in the
annexed plate in order that naturalists may judge whether or not
we are right in referring it to the new European species hitherto
confounded with Tringa alpina, and lately separated by Brehm in
his work on the birds of Europe, under the name of Tringa
Schinzii. It is so difficult to say what is a species and what a
variety in this most intricate genus, that we shall not undertake
to decide from a single specimen, especially when, as in this case,
it involves the identity of the bird in the two continents.
66 Pelidna cinclus var. Above blackish brown, plumage edged
with cinereous or whitish; head and neck above cinereous with
dilated fuscous lines; eyebrows white; a brown line between the
eye and corner of the mouth, above which the front is white;
cheeks, sides of the neck and throat cinereous lineated, with
blackish-brown, bill short, straight, black; chin, breast, belly,
VOL. IV.-S

70
SCHINZ'S SANDPIPER.
a
وو
vent, and inferior tail-coverts pure white, plumage plumbeous at
base; scapulars and lesser wing-coverts margined with white;
greater wing-coverts with a broad white tip; primaries surpassing
the tip of the tail, blackish, slightly edged with whitish, exterior
shaft white, shafts whitish on the middle of their length; rump
blackish, plumage margined at tip with cinereous tinctured with
rufous; tail-coverts white, submargins black; tail-feathers cine-
reous margined with white, two middle ones slightly longer,
black margined with white; legs blackish. Adult male. Length
to tip of tail seven inches. Bill seven eighths of an inch."
This bird was shot in November, near Engineer Cantonment;
and Mr. Say thought it was probably a variety of the very
changeable cinclus (Tringa alpina) in its winter plumage. It is
this very specimen that we have had represented of its full size in
the annexed figure in order that naturalists may judge if we are
right in the course that we have chosen. Be it as it may, we are
satisfied that Tringa schinzii is a good species, well distinguished
from Tringa alpina by its smaller size, and proportionally even
shorter bill. The more extensively white upper tail-coverts are
the best and most conspicuous mark : it is also to be observed
that in the summer dress the ferruginous color of the upper part
is paler, the black spot of the breast more restricted and less
pure; and the neck more broadly streaked. Both sexes are
moreover perfectly alike in color, which is never the case in the
alpina in spring dress. It belongs to the subgenus Tringa, of
which we have already treated, and it is common to both conti-
nents. In America it is found from far beyond the Mississippi
.
to the Atlantic shores, and is rather common in autumn on the
coasts of New Jersey, either in flocks by themselves, or mixing in
company with other Sandpipers, with which it has every habit in
common.

SCHINZ'S SANDPIPER.
71
The specimens that we shot in New Jersey measured seven
inches in length and above fourteen in extent. The bill is very
.
nearly but not quite an inch long, compressed and black from the
base : the crown, neck above, and interscapulary region are of an
ashy-brown, much darker in the centre of each feather and
lighter on their margins; on the lower portion of their back this
darker color widening, predominates, and becomes black, so that
the tips of the feathers only are of the general pale ashy color;
the upper tail-coverts are white, blackish along the shaft and
towards the margin of the outer vane: a whitish stripe runs from
the very origin of the bill over each eye; the cheeks, sides of the
neck and breast are whitish streaked with ashy dusky along the
shaft of the feathers, giving these parts an obscurely lineated
appearance, the throat quite to the bill, and all the remaining
under parts are white, the bottom of the plumage being plum-
beous, and a few bands of that color appearing across the lower
flank feathers. The wings are four inches and a quarter long,
with the tertials and scapularies remarkably tapering and acumi-
nate, shorter by a good inch than the two first quill-feathers : all
the wing-coverts are of the color of the body, but a little darker,
each having a pale gray margin, the inner great coverts have a
very pure white tip: the shafts of all the quill feathers are pure
white at least for a good portion near the centre: the primaries
are blackish ash: the secondaries paler and margined with
whitish, the tertials are again blackish edged with pale grayish :
the under surface of the wing is of a silvery gray; the under
wing-coverts white marbled with dusky. The tail is two and a a
quarter inches long : the four lateral feathers each side are very
nearly equal in length, of a pale ash color margined and shafted
with white : they become gradually darker as they are nearer the
centre, the fifth each side is blackish ash, a trifle longer than
those already described, and has a very conspicuous pure white
a
:
n

72
SCHINZ'S SANDPIPER.
marginal tip on the inner web; the two middle surpass the others
by a quarter of an inch, are somewhat pointed, and entirely
blackish. The feet are blackish ; the naked space above the heel
half an inch; the tarsus seven eighths of an inch long, and much
longer than the middle toe, the toes are cleft to the base; the
nails are blackish. As will easily be perceived the specimen
described is in the winter dress.
This Sandpiper is well known to appear in a summer vesture
analogous to that of Tringa alpina at the same season; but we
have never met with an American specimen in that state.
In the full-plumaged males the bill and feet are black : irides
brown: before the eye a small blackish patch surmounted by a
white stripe dotted with blackish gray. Head above, back and
wing-coverts bright rufous, the feathers with merely a black cen-
tre: colors not so bright as in Tringa alpina : wings above blackish
gray with black shafts; point of the primaries black, with white
shafts : the ten middle tail-feathers as well as their upper coverts
are blackish: the lateral cinereous with their coverts white: the chin
is white, the sides of the head and hind neck are of a ferruginous
gray: : throat white, longitudinally spotted with rufous gray; the
breast almost entirely of a jet-black color, always interrupted by
some insulated white feathers, and never so broadly black as in
Tringa alpina : all the remaining under parts are white, with a very
few dusky streaks on the sides.
At one year of age the male is on the back of a less bright
rufous spotted with black: on the breast the black consists
merely of a spot, and is mixed with many white feathers. The
female much resembles the male at the same age.
young is above of a ferruginous color varied with white, yellowish,
and black; all beneath white, streaked with dusky ferruginous on
the throat.
The very
a

SCHINZ'S SANDPIPER.
73
They frequent marshy shores, and the borders of lakes and
brackish waters. They are very social even in the breeding time,
and are then by no means shy: during autumn they join company
even with different birds, and become very wild. Their voice
resembles that of Tringa alpina, but is more feeble. They feed
on worms, aquatic insects and similar food: build near marshes
and lakes, among weeds : they lay four eggs, smaller and much
less in diameter than those of Tringa alpina, of a yellowish-gray
spotted with olive or chestnut brown.
.
VOL. IV.-T

74
}
PIPING PLOVER.
CHARADRIUS MELODUS.
Plate XXIV. Fig. 3.
a
See Wilson's American Ornithology, Ringed Plover, Charadrius Hiatacula, Vol. V.
p. 30, pl. 37, fig. 3, for a reduced representation of the adult in spring dress, and the
history
Charadrius melodus, Ord, in the reprint of Wilson's Orn. VII. p. 71, and Gen. Ind. of
the water Birds, Suppl. Orn. Wils. (IX.) p. ccxii. Nob. Obs. Wils. Orn. sp. 220.
Id. Cat. and Syn. Birds U. S. sp. 217. Id. Specch. Comp. sp. Philad.
Charadrius Okenii, WagLER, Syst. Av. I, Charad. sp. 24.
Ringed Plover var. B. LATH. Gen. Hist. IX. p. 327. sp. 12 var. B.
Philadelphia Museum.
a
The well merited elevation of this bird to the rank of a species
fully vindicates our predecessor from the unjust censure of
Temminck, who thought his figure of it intended for the
Charadrius hiaticula. The same censure is repeated and aggra-
vated by Mr. Sabine, who probably thought it intended for the C.
semipalmatus. But if the figure is free from the supposed fault of
incorrectness, its extremely diminished size, which renders it
almost useless, requires that the bird should now appear in this
work in its full dimensions.
Not only is the true C. hiaticula of Europe not found on the
American continent, but the birds hitherto mistaken for it
constitute two very distinct and exclusively American species,
notwithstanding the awkward quotations in the new edition of
Cuvier's Règne Animal, which, in this instance, as in several
others, is as far behind its age as the former was in advance of it.

PIPING PLOVER.
75
Although the never too much lamented Wilson gave, in his
fifth volume, the present bird as a variety of which he intended
figuring the type in a future part of his work, when he came to it
in his seventh volume, he clearly and positively pointed out the
difference in markings, habits, migrations, and voice, between the
two which he then considered as distinct species : he thus in
reality established the species, and indeed so well, that we cannot
do better than refer to his conclusive reasonings. The only
essential point he omitted was to impose a name on his species,
which he undoubtedly would have done had he lived to publish
himself the index to the water birds, as, in some instances, he
supplied similar deficiencies for the land birds. Mr. Ord has,
however, filled this void by calling the bird C. melodus, which
appropriate name we feel bound to adopt; and the more so, as
Mr. Ord informs us that it would have been Wilson's own choice.
Almost simultaneously with our endeavours in this country for
permanently fixing the species, Dr. Wagler in Europe, on his
part, was also giving it a name, so that it is now furnished with
two.
In the circumstance of its inner toe being cleft to the base, this
bird approaches more closely to C. hiaticula of Europe, than to C.
semipalmatus ; but in colours it differs greatly from these so
similar species, and the membrane that connects the outer toe is
considerably smaller than in any. The synonyms of Wilson do
not of course apply to this new species; and what is worse, though
this is common to all writers upon the Ring-Plover, they do not
belong to one and the same species.
Although, without doubt, related to the Tringe, which are
Scolopacidæ, the Plovers belong to another family, that of the
Pressirostres of Cuvier—which may be called Charadridæ-and
through Otis and Edicnemus these Waders are connected some-
what with the Gallinaceous birds. This natural family of ours,

76
PIPING PLOVER.
very
different from the artificial one formed by so many authors
for the three-toed Waders indiscriminately, and adopted under
the name Charadriadæ by the new English school, though professing
to adhere to a natural arrangement—is well distinguished by its
short (or moderately so) rather robust bill, the hind toe wanting,
or when present, very short. It is composed of but eight genera,
of which only three are found in North America, two aberrant,
and the present, the only typical American, which is well dis-
tinguished by its bill, very short rounded, obtuse, and somewhat
turgid at tip. In order to exemplify how different from that of
authors is this family, as we understand it, we may remark that
the birds forming it are scattered by Illiger through his Campes-
tres, Littorales, and Limicolæ ; by Cuvier and Latreille divided
between their Longirostres and Pressirostres ; by Vieillot placed in
Pedionomi, Ægialites, Helionomi ; in Tachidromi and Limose by
Ranzani and Savi; in Charadriadæ and Scolopacidæ by Vigors, &c.
Our genus Charadrius has different limits from those of perhaps
any recent or former author, being more extensive than in many,
but more contracted than that of Wagler, which comprehends all
our typical Charadridæ. Linné, who made it a sort of receptacle
for nearly all three-toed Waders, has placed in Tringa some of
our Plovers that are furnished with a rudiment of hind toe, and
the same has been done by Gmelin, Latham, Illiger, and even,
though to a less extent, by Cuvier. As long since restricted by the
separation of Himantopus and Calidris, which are not of the same
family, and of Edicnemus, which truly is, it is much more natural;
especially if with Wilson we unite with it, as nature dictates, those
species that happen to possess the rudiment of a fourth toe.
Among the earlier writers Brisson was the first who assigned
more natural limits to the genus which he called Pluviatis, and his
two well enough composed genera, Piuvlalis and Vanellus, include
all our Plovers. Cuvier, Temminck, Vieillot, and Ranzani place

PIPING PLOVER.
77
the four-toed Plovers with the Lapwings, Vanellus. Savi more
recently has evinced his good judgment by separating them at
least from Vanellus, if he does not unite them with Charadrius,
which his professedly artificial system did not allow.
I distinguish two subgenera in my extensive genus Charadrius,
regarding Squatarola of Cuvier and Savi as no more than a section
of my first subgenus, of so little importance do I consider the
anomaly of the hind toe, the sole characteristic of that artificial
group. These subgenera are: 1. Pluvialis, for the large mottled
species without a collar, and with variegated plumage. Such are
amongst the three-toed the European and Asiatic C. pluvialis and
morinellus, and the American virginicus (or marmoratus); and among
the four-toed the Europeo-Asiatic bird C. gregarius, and the
cosmopolite C. helveticus. 2. Ægialitis, Boie, or the Ring-Plovers,
which have a broad white collar around the neck. This is the
more numerous in species, and the present belongs to it: it
may form two sections, one for the semipalmated Ring-Plovers,
whose toes are all connected at base by a membrane, and the
other for this and the remaining Ring-Plovers, in which the inner
toe is separated down to the base. As for the armed or spur-
winged Plovers, as well as the wattled species, all I have examined
were perfectly similar to the armed and wattled Lapwing, and
they constitute in my arrangement a very natural subgenus under
the name of Hoplopterus, which group, like Pluvialis, may be
sectioned into those with three and those with four toes. This
group of Hoplopterus, both by its tarsus and wings, takes place
under my genus Vanellus, and differs subgenerically from the
typical species merely by its longer legs, and hind toe less deve-
loped, or often wanting. Pluvianus, Vieillot, distinguished by a
stouter bill, I never have examined, but have no doubt that it will
find its place in my genus Vanellus, where it may be united to my
three-toed Hoplopteri, or possibly become a subgenus by itself.
VOL. IV.-U

78
PIPING PLOVER.
Both the three-toed and four-toed species that form my subgenus
Charadrius, and are so easily known by their greater size and want
of a collar, live in large damp meadows, or open and muddy
champaign countries. They hardly ever alight on the beach, or
even accidentally on river shores. During the nuptial season the
males assume a brighter vesture. They do not breed in the
temperate climates of Europe or North America, but only show
themselves there in autumn and winter. Their flesh is exquisite
food.
The Ring-Plovers on the contrary are shore birds in their
habits, and may be known by their diminutive size and broad
white collar. They frequent invariably the banks of rivers and
sandy sea beaches, and it is by accident if they are seen at a dis-
tance from their favourite element. Their plumage does not
undergo extreme changes, and merely from darker to lighter.
Several species breed in our climates, and their flesh is hardly
esculent. Although not marked by any striking physical cha-
racter, we regard the extensive group Ægialitis as a very natural
one : it has numerous species in every part of our globe. The
three European are modelled precisely after the same type as the
present species, while the three other North American have each
a strong distinctive character peculiar to itself: in the Semi-
palmated it is the webbed toes, in the Wilson's the powerful and
acute bill, and in the Kildeer its large stature and oddly coloured
wedge-shaped tail.
In all our Plovers the bill is shorter than the head, rather
slender, straight, cylindrical, depressed at base, obtuse and
somewhat turgid at tip: the upper mandible is longitudinally
furrowed two-thirds of its length, the lower is shorter: a remark
able character consists in the small opening of the bill, which is
hardly cleft beyond the origin of the feathers. This peculiarity
affords an excellent means of distinguishing them from the

PIPING PLOVER.
79
Edicnemi, in which the gape extends to beneath the eye. The
nostrils are basal, lateral, placed in the furrow, and covered by a
membrane, leaving only a narrow longitudinal opening: the
tongue is entire, obtusely lanceolate, channelled somewhat above,
convex beneath. The head is large in proportion to the body, and
the eyes large even for the head : the forehead is prominent and
the face wholly feathered. The feet are either three or four-toed,
with the hind toe exceedingly small and raised from the ground:
the naked part of the tibia is moderate; the tarsi are longer than
the middle toe and reticulated; the toes scutellate, margined by a
narrow squamulose membrane : the middle toe is longest and
connected to the outer, at least to the first joint, by a membrane :
even in the species that have the inner toe cleft there are traces
of the membrane, which is so much developed in the Semipal-
mated Ring-Plover: the nails are compressed, curved, and acute.
The wings are elongated, acute, and tuberculate: the first primary
is longest, and after the second they decrease rapidly, thus
presenting a most useful mark for discriminating between this and
the kindred genus Vanellus, which has obtuse wings, the third
primary being the longest, and the others decreasing gradually.
The tail is more or less rounded, always composed of twelve
feathers, rounded or lanceolate. The plumage of the under parts
is soft, the feathers being numerous, wide, rather dense in the
centre, with the barbs rather loose, and well furnished with down
at base : the plumage of the upper parts is rather dense, and the
feathers more or less rounded at the tips: the scapularies are
long, at the tips attenuated and very flexible. In most of the
species the males and females are alike, the young somewhat
different from them. They moult generally twice in the year,
when the colours of their plumage undergo some changes.
The Plovers are all more or less gregarious in disposition: their
haunts are either meadows, as the mottled Plovers, or the sea-

80
PIPING PLOVER
shores, like the Ring-Plovers: they have a very remarkable habit
of stirring the soil with their feet, to put in motion worms and
aquatic insects, their exclusive food. They are more nocturnal
than diurnal. They lay in the sand about four large eggs. The
young very soon after they are hatched follow the mother, and
pick up the food which she with great care points out to them.
The Piping Plover is seven inches long, and fourteen in extent:
the bill is bright yellow slightly tinged with orange for half its
length, thence black : the eyelids are bright yellow and the irides
dark brown. The plumage above generally, with the mere inter-
.
ruption of the ring on the neck, is of an extremely pale brownish
or dusky, inclining strongly to whitish ash: the front, part of the
head between the bill and eyes, and the whole inferior surface
from the chin to the tip of the lower tail-coverts, and including
the under wing-coverts and long axillary feathers is pure white :
the head and breast are ornamented, the former with a black
crescent, that runs transversely between the eyes and bounds the
white forehead on one side, and the ash-coloured parts of the head
on the other; the latter by a curved band round its sides, forming
the ring or half-collar round the neck, but narrow and almost
interrupted before. The wings are four and three quarter inches
long, and reach when closed to the tip of the tail; the wing-coverts
are darker than the back feathers, and are all edged with white :
the larger coverts are broadly terminated with white, constituting
the band across the wings: the quill-feathers are dusky; the
secondaries are broadly white inside with margins of the same :
the primaries are blackish at the point, shafted and obliquely
centred with white; the four outer ones are blackish on their
outer margins where the others are white. The tail is two and a
half inches in length, nearly square at tip, being much less
rounded than in the Semipalmated species, white beneath for half
its length, and blackish at tip; the outer tail-feather is wholly

PIPING PLOVER.
81
white, the next is also white, and with a single spot of black,
which on the third extends much more, and still more on the
fourth, and fifth, till the last is merely terminated with white, the
middle ones being wholly dusky from the white of the base. The
feet are greenish yellow tinged with orange, and the nails black.
Those authors who describe the autumnal plumage as much
darker, are still labouring under the erroneous opinion which
they had rejected, of this being the same with the C. semipalmatus.
On the contrary, it is if anything still paler at that season, and
considerably resembles that of the young birds, which are distin-
guished by the absence of the neck ring and sincipital crescent,
and the bill being entirely blackish.
As will appear by referring to Wilson's two articles on the
Ring Plovers, this species is commonly met with during the whole
summer along the sandy coasts of the United States, on the
approach of winter retiring south: it lays in the month of July on
the sandy beach, three or four eggs, very large for the bird, of an
obscure clay colour, all sprinkled with numerous reddish spots.
It runs rapidly, holding the wings half expanded; and utters a
very soft and mellow cry.
VOL. IV.X

82
HYPERBOREAN PHALAROPE.
PHALAROPUS HYPERBOREUS.
Plate XXV. Fig. 2.
Tringa hyperborea, Linn. Syst. I, p. 249, sp. 9. GMEL. Syst. I, p. 675, sp. 9.
LINN,
RETZ,
Faun. Suec. p. 183, sp. 152. MULL. Prod. Zool. Dan. sp. 196.
Tringa lobata, LINN. Syst. I, p. 249, sp. 8. Id. Faun. Suec. p. 64, sp. 179. RETZ,
Faun. Suec. 152, Young. Mull. Prod. Zool. Dan. p. 195. FABR. Faun. Groen. p.
109, sp. 75, Adult and Young and history. BRUNN. Orn. Bor. p. 51, sp. 171, Young.
(N. B. Not of Gmel. who under this name had in view the Ph. fulicarius, though
he unaccountably retained the Linnean phrase.)
Tringa fusca, GMEL. Syst. I, p. 675, sp. 33, Young.
Phalaropus hyperboreus, Lath. Ind. Orn. II, p. 775, sp. 1. MULLER, sp. 196. Trans.
Linn. Soc. Memoir birds of Greenland, XII, p. 535. TEMM. Man. Orn. 1st ed. p.
457. Id. Man. Orn. 2d ed. II, p. 709. SABINE, App. Franklin's Exp. p. 690.
Nob. Add. Orn. U. S. in Ann. Lyc. N. Y. II, p. 159. Id. Cat. Syn. birds U S. sp.
279. Id. Specch. Comp.
Phalaropus fuscus, Briss. Orn. VI, p. 15, sp. 3. Id. 8vo. II, p. 363. Lath. Ind. Orn.
II, p. 776, sp. 4. Linn. Trans. XII, p. 535, Young.
Phalaropus cinereus, Briss. Orn. VI, p. 15, sp. 2. Id. 8vo. II, p. 362, Adult Nilss.
Orn. Suec. II, p. 120, sp. 193. MEYER & WOLF, Tasch. loc. cit. BREHM, Lehrb.
Eur. Vog. II, p. 665. Roux, Orn. Provenc. pl. 337, adult Male.
Phalaropus Williamsii, HAWORTH, Linn. Trans. VIII, p. 264.
Lobipes hyperboreus, SELBY & JARDINE, Orn. Ill. I, Synops. sp. 1.
Larus fidipes alter nostras, Ray, Syn. Av. p. 132, A. 7. WILL.
WILL. p. 270.
Tringa fusca rostro tenui, KLEIN, Av. p. 151, sp. 3.
Falaropo iperboreo, Ranz. Elem. Zool. III, pt. VIII, p. 283, sp. 1.
Le Coq d'Odin, Anon. Icon. Rer. Nat. II, p. 8, pl. 20, Adult.
Phalarope cendré, Buff. Ois. VIII, p. 224. Id. ed. 1784, IX, p. 124. German
Translation by OTTO, XXX, p. 111, cum figura. Roux, tab. cit.
Phalarope de Siberie, Buff. pl. enl. 766, Male.
Phalarope hyperboré, TEMM. loc. cit. VIEILL. Orn. Franc. pl. 278, fig. a, summer dress,
fig. b, winter.

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OTTO
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Drawn from Nature by A. Rider.
Wilsons Phalarepo Berung
Hypertenan Phatarope
Phatarepuis Hypertere.
Tong legged Tandpiper.
Triga Himantopis
Engraved by Alatander Larsen
Semipalmated Perry
Charadrins Semipalmatos.
Phalasepow Miami
.
.
25


HYPERBOREAN PHALAROPE.
83
0
Lobipède à hausse-col, Cuv. Regn. Anim. I, p. 532.
Cock coot-footed Tringa, Edw. Glean. pl. 143, adult Female.
Coot-footed Tringa, Edw. Glean. pl. 46, Young.
Jonston's small cloven-footed Gull, Will. Engl. p. 355, Ở VII.
Red Phalarope, LATH. Syn. V, p. 70, sp. 1. Ubersetz, (translation) V, p. 289, sp. 1,
tab. 94, Male. Id. Gen. Hist. X, p. 1, sp. 1, and var. A and B, (pl. 163.) (N. B.
Var. C is P. fulicarius, taken from Wilson's work.) Penn. Brit. Zool. II, p. 219,
pl. 76. ID. ed. 1812, 11, p. 125, pl. 21. Arct. Zool. II, p. 494. BEWICK, 11, p. 139.
LEWIN, V, pl. 193. Walck. II, pl. 127. Mont. Orn. Dict. Suppl. and App.
.
Brown Phalarope, LATH. Syn. V, p. 274, sp. 4. PENN. Arct. Zool. II, sp. 214, young.
Red-necked Phalarope, BEWICK, Brit. birds, II, p. 149.
Seeschnepfe, CRANTZ, Hist. Groenl. p. 113.
Der Wasserstretter, SCHMID. Dog. p. 128, tab. 111.
Aschgrauer Wasserstretter, Bechst. Nat. Deutschl. IV, p. 372. MEYER & WOLF,
Tasch. II, p. 417.
Rothalrige Wasserstretter, WOLF & MEYER, Vog. Deutschl. I, Heft. 15, fig. 1, adult
Male, fig. 2, young Female, fig. 3, young Male. SELIGMANN's Voy. V, tab. 38.
Gemeine Wasserstretter, BECHST. Nat. Deutschl. II, p. 317. MEYER, Vog. Deutschl.
I, Heft. 15, fig. 2 and 3, Young at different ages. Natm. Vog. Nachts. II, p. 80, fig.
24, Young
Fisklita, Act. Nidr. III, p. 575. Bam. II, p. 407.
Norduest fugl, Bom. Nat. Hist. V, p. 599.
Nuorte-ladde, v. BIEGGUSH, Lieur. Finmark, p. 290.
My collection, Adult and Young.
By giving a representation of this Phalarope, besides that we
add a species to the American Ornithology, we make good our
promise of settling an important question. A glance at our figure
of the Hyperborean Phalarope, here brought into comparison
with the young Wilson's Phalarope, will at once evince the incor-
rectness of Mr. Ord's refined distinctions, and ultimate decision
that they were the same bird. This comparison shows more
conclusively than any argument to be found in our respective
writings on this subject, what are the real facts. We have
previously observed, when illustrating the former species, that

84
HYPERBOREAN PHALAROPE.
they even differ subgenerically, and that this one alone ought to
form the genus Lobipes of Cuvier.
The Lobipes of Cuvier, since called by the recent English
writers Lobefoot, and on which Vieillot imposed the name of
Phalaropus, is formed in our opinion of this single species, not-
withstanding that Cuvier and some English authors include the
P. wilsonii in it on account of its bill being similar. But the feet
are too different to allow of such a reunion, being in this one
precisely similar to those of the flat-billed species.
The bill of the Lobefoot is moderate in length, slender, smooth,
cylindrical throughout, and a little stoutish at base, subulate to
the tip, with the point narrow and sharp: the upper mandible
curves slightly upon the lower at tip, where they do not quite
meet, as occurs in some Totani : the nostrils are not quite basal,
as in the Holopodius, and are linear instead of the subovate form
of the Crymophilus, or true Phalarope: the tongue is also filiform
and acute, and by no means broad, fleshy, and obtuse, as in the
same group
The tarsi are however longer than in this, though
shorter and less compressed than in the Holopodius: the toes are
likewise intermediate as to length between the two other groups :
the middle one is connected with the inner to the first joint, and
with the outer to the second ; the edging membrane is broad,
deeply scallopped, and finely pectinated: the hind toe is very
short, only the nail touching the ground. The wings are more
elongated than in Crymophilus: the tail on the contrary is shorter,
and the general form slender, in which respect, and some others
also, they bear a resemblance to Totanus.
The Hyperborean Lobefoot, as represented in its summer,
though not its perfect plumage, is seven and a half inches long,
and fourteen and a quarter in extent. The bill is less than an
inch long, black, exceedingly slender, and with both mandibles
remarkably acute, the upper being rather longer and somewhat

HYPERBOREAN PHALAROPE.
85
a
inflected at tip. The irides are brown. The head, neck above,
back, and wing-coverts, are very dark gray, which comes forward
,
and round on the lower part of the neck, thus encircling the white
throat: through the eye from the bill passes a broad dusky stripe
to the hind head; a rufous line arises behind the eye, which dilates
into a large patch on each side of the neck, the two nearly joining
at the back part: the sides of the neck and throat are white, the
eyelids white; the back and scapulars are of a darker colour than
the adjoining parts, with large spots of ferruginous on the upper
part of the back, occupying the outer side of the feathers: the
rump and upper tail-coverts are banded dusky and white. The
sides of the breast are dark cinereous, all the remaining lower
parts are white, the base of the plumage being blackish ash,
which rather predominates on the flanks, giving to these parts a
very dark mixed appearance. The wings are four and a quarter
inches long, and when closed reach precisely to the tip of the tail;
the under wing-coverts are varied with white and blackish ash;
the lesser and middle upper coverts are dark blackish gray, the
latter with a few white streaks at the tip of the outer one: the
greater are almost blackish, and broadly pure white at the tips,
which makes a conspicuous band of pure white across the wings :
the primaries are blackish, slightly edged with paler, and with
whitish shafts; the secondaries are white at their base, and on the
margin of their blackish tips, some of them being also white on
their inner web, so that the white much predominates: the tertials
are very long and wholly blackish. The tail is little more than two
inches long; the feathers are blackish gray, edged with pale ferru-
ginous at tip. The feet are of a greenish lead; the naked space on
the tibia nearly half an inch; the tarsus little more than three
quarters of an inch, and precisely of the same length with the
middle toe; the hind toe no more than three sixteenths of an inch.
In old and perfect specimens, especially old females, this sex
VOL. IV.-Y

86
HYPERBOREAN PHALAROPE.
being larger and much handsomer, the back, scapulars, and wing-
coverts are of a very intense shining black, the anterior part
of the back and scapulars being skirted with fulvous, and the
wing-coverts edged near the tip with pure white; the sides and
also the inferior portion of the neck are of a bright rufous: the
two middle tail-feathers are of the same deep black as the back,
and the lateral ashy ones are edged with white. It will be
remarked that the chief difference between the specimen figured
and the quite perfect state resides in the ferruginous colouring of
the sides of the neck, which does not meet on the breast, as it
does quite broadly in adult birds : considerable variation takes
place in this respect, which is entirely owing to the more or less
advanced maturity of the bird.
The young before the summer moult are well distinguished by
having the forehead, cheeks, throat, sides of the neck and neck
beneath pure white, as well as all the under parts, the neck and
flanks being the only parts tinged with cinereous: a slight yellow-
ish tinge appears on the sides of the neck: the top of the head
only, a band along the nucha, and a patch around the eyes are
blackish-gray slightly skirted with rufous: the back and scapulars
blackish, each feather broadly skirted with bright ferruginous :
the wing-coverts blackish, lesser margined with white; greater
white at the tip: the inner part of the tarsus is yellow; the exterior
and the toes of a yellowish green.
During summer this bird resorts to lakes and fresh waters,
though preferring at all times brackish water: in winter they
betake themselves to the sea, and are even met with at great
distances from land, floating among icebergs in the desolate seas
of the north: they swim still better than the other Phalaropes,
and are met with farther at sea. This species is mostly seen in
pairs, though sometimes in small flocks, and busily engaged in
dipping their bill into the water after the minute and almost

HYPERBOREAN PHALAROPE.
87
invisible animals of the ocean. They are also much on the wing,
somewhat like the Gulls and Terns, and their cry resembles that
of the Greater Tern.
Although the Hyperborean Phalarope is a very rare visitant in
the United States, there being a few instances only of its being
shot in Boston Bay and on Long Island, it breeds regularly at
Hudson's Bay; arriving there annually in the beginning of June.
In the middle of this month they lay three or four eggs on a dry
spot among the grass : the nest is placed on a small hillock near
a pond, and contains four very small pyriform eggs, resembling
those of a Snipe in shape, but much less, and of a deep olive
colour, blotched with dusky, so thickly as nearly to obscure the
ground colour. The young fly in August, and they all depart in
,
September for less rigorous climes. In Greenland the species
also arrives regularly in April and departs in September. This
bird inhabits the Orkney and Shetland islands, as well as those
of the Norwegian sea, in considerable numbers during summer,
breeding there. It is very common in the marshes of Sanda and
Westra, but especially Landa and North Ronaldsha, the two most
northerly of the Orkney Isles, in the breeding season, but leaves
them in autumn for milder regions. Its favourite abode is the
shores of lakes situated within the Arctic circle: it is plentiful in
the northern parts of Sweden, Russia, and Norway, as well as
the northern coasts of Siberia, and between Asia and America,
extending its irregular wanderings even to the Caspian Sea. In
Iceland it is observed to come about the middle of May, and
remain in flocks at sea ten miles from the shore, retiring early in
June to mountain ponds : remarkably faithful to each other, both
sexes are quarrelsome with strangers, and the males are very
pugnacious, fighting together running to and fro on the surface
of the water while the females are sitting. The species passes
regularly along the north coasts of Scotland and the continental
:

88
HYPERBOREAN PHALAROPE.
coasts of the Baltic Sea. It appears also, though rarely, during
spring and autumn in the southern Scandinavian provinces. In
England it is very rare, and quite as accidental as in the United
States, though it has been casually observed in Germany, France,
and even on the great lakes of Switzerland : an individual was
killed on the lake of Geneva in August, 1806, the only one ever
seen on that lake, where the flat-billed Phalarope is by no means
so excessively rare: the specimen alluded to was killed while
swimming and picking up small diptera from the surface of
the water. These wanderers are always young birds; but never
within my knowledge has an individual been known to stray into
any part of Italy. The favourite food of this species is water
insects, especially diptera, that abound at the mouths of rivers.
The old ones hover round their young when exposed to any
imminent danger, repeating prip, prip, and at the commencement
of August carry them out to sea, at the end of that month being
no longer to be found inland. The Greenlanders kill them with
their arrows, and eat the flesh, which being oily, suits their taste:
they also keep the very soft skin, making use of it to rub their
eyes with, and thinking it efficacious in curing a species of
ophthalmia to which they are subject.
Although the specific name of lobata was given first by Linné to
the present species before he bestowed upon it the additional one
of hyperborea, we have thought it proper to retain the latter, which
is also Linnean, because that of lobata has been successively
applied to each of the three species, and by Latham exclusively
appropriated to another, whilst the present has never been so
misapplied, and is long since unanimously consecrated to this
species. By adopting the prior name of lobata, we should have
been compelled to quote our own authority, and say Ph. lobatus,
Nob., since Ph. lobatus, LATH. is the Ph. fulicarius, and Ph. lobatus,
ORD, the Ph. Wilsoni.

89
LONG-LEGGED SANDPIPER.
TRINGA HIMANTOPUS.
Plate XXV. Fig. 3.
Tringa himantopus, Nob. in Ann. Lyc. New York, II, p. 157. In. Cat. and Syn. birds
U. S. sp. 245. Id. Specch. comp. sp. Philad.
My collection
THE figure of this remarkable bird cannot fail to create a
sensation among naturalists, and a careful examination may
induce them to attach more importance to our subgenus Hemipa-
lama than Baron Cuvier has done, and to admit that it is quite as
distinct as his Machetes. That this has not already been done is
no doubt because the real type, which is this species, was so little
known. The Tringa semipalmata of Wilson, which we have united
with it merely on account of its semipalmated toe, has no real
affinity with it, but is similar to the other Sandpipers, and we
should never have thought of instituting a separate group for it
alone, more than for the Charadrius semipalmatus.
The Long-legged Sandpiper is in fact one of those beings that
although intimately connected with several groups, with which
they have many things in common, yet possess peculiarities suffi-
cient to insulate them completely from all that surround them.
It is very remarkable for its anomalous characters. Though
decidedly a Tringa, it connects, still more evidently than the
other species with long subarched bills, that have been placed in
Numenius by German authors, this latter genus with its own,
since to the other common traits of resemblance it unites the
semipalmated toes'; so that in fact instead of placing it at the
head of the Tringæ, it should rather be arranged last of the
VOL. IV.-Z

90
LONG-LEGGED SANDPIPER.
Numenii, were this not forbidden by the long and delicate legs
and toes, as well as some other peculiarities easier to perceive
than to express by words. As a species, in form, dimensions, and
especially in plumage, this bird greatly resembles Tringa subar-
quata of Temminck, (Numenius africanus, Lath.) from which it is
however clearly distinguished by its still longer and semipalmated
feet, in which latter only it resembles T. semipalmata. It cannot
for a moment be mistaken for any other Tringa, differing widely
from all, and by a complication of anomalies resembling more in
general garb and plumage a Totanus than a Tringa.
We are unable to say much of the habits of this curious Sand-
piper, further than that we met with it in the month of July, 1826,
near a small freshwater pond at Long Branch. Being there in
company with my friend Mr. Cooper, we observed a flock flying
about, at which I fired, and killed the one here represented. On
first picking it up, I mistook it for a time for T. subarquata, a
species very rare in the United States, though one of the most
common in Italy, but was undeceived upon observing the web
between the toes. This is the only specimen I have ever seen,
though the gentleman just mentioned informs me that he has
recently procured another that was shot in the month of May on
the south shore of Long Island.
This new species is nearly nine and a half inches long. The
bill, much longer than the head, is decidedly subarched, and mea-
sures one inch and five eighths, and is black. The general plu-
mage is of the same gray colour usual in other Sandpipers: the
crown is dusky, mixed with whitish and blackish, and with a little
bright rusty on the margins; a broad whitish line is above the
eye; between the bill and eye dusky, a patch of rust-colour on the
auriculars: the neck above and on the sides is mixed with whitish;
the back and scapulars black, the feathers tipped with dusky gray
and marked with pale rusty: the rump is plain dusky gray,
a

LONG-LEGGED SANDPIPER.
91
and the upper tail-coverts white, regularly banded with black.
The throat is whitish, obsoletely dotted with blackish; the whole
under surface is then, including the tail-coverts, white, each fea-
ther being banded with blackish, and one of the bands terminal.
The wings are five and a half inches long; all the coverts plain
dusky with lighter margins; the under coverts are marbled with
blackish and whitish: the primaries are blackish, the first with a
white shaft; the secondaries are pale dusky, edged with whitish.
The tail is gray, even, and two inches long, the two middle
feathers are acute, projecting beyond the others the length of
their points; the outer on each side is also somewhat longer than
the others: all are pale dusky with white shafts, the white spread-
ing somewhat along the middle, but particularly at the base,
where all the feathers but the middle ones are white, as well
as the two outer also on the greater part of their inner vane.
The feet are black, and the legs very long : the naked space on
the tibia one inch and a quarter: the tarsus one and three quarters
long: the middle toe is very nearly one inch without the nail, and
about as much over an inch including it: all the front toes are
half-webbed, that is with a membrane connecting them at base.

92
YOUNG SEMIPALMATED PLOVER
CHARADRIUS SEMIPALMATUS.
Plate XXV. Fig. 4.
See Wilson's American Ornithology, Ring-Plover, Charadrius (Tringa, by a typogra-
phical error,) Hiaticula, vol. VII, p. 65, (ORD's ed. p. 69,) pl. 59, fig. 3, for the Adult
in spring dress, and the history.
Charadrius semipalmatus, Nov. Obs. Nom. Wils. sp. 219. Id. Cat. and Syn. birds U. S.
sp. 216. Id. Specch. comp. sp. Philad. Caur, Isis, XII, 1825, p. 1375, t. 14, (the
head and foot.) WAGLER, Syst. Av. I, Charadrius, sp. 23.
Philadelphia Museum.
THE credit of first pointing out the curious though obscure
character which distinguishes the present bird from its very near
relative the Ch. hiaticula of Europe, is due to Mr. Ord, and after
verifying it in all our American specimens, we feel satisfied that
the true hiaticula does not inhabit this continent, and those authors
who have recorded it as American, must bave mistaken the pre-
sent species for it: we might therefore have swelled our limited list
of synonyms with quotations of all their American specimens
described under this name. The species was first established in
our 66 Observations on the Nomenclature of Wilson,” and in our
Synopsis,” and nearly at the same time by Mr. Caup also, on a
single specimen in the Museum of Darmstadt, whose origin was
doubtful, but the real one suspected. By a fortunate coincidence,
Mr. Caup and myself were led to select the same appropriate
name for our bird, which is the less extraordinary, as being sug-
gested by so material an anomaly in the characters; Natural
History conducting us in this instance to the result of one of the
most exact sciences.
66

YOUNG SEMIPALMATED PLOVER.
93
The distinctions between the three European species of Ring-
Plovers having been until lately but little understood, it is not to
be wondered at if those inhabiting these States were not at once
well established: North America counts also three, independently
of the Kildeer, and several others not yet properly determined
inhabit other parts of the world.
Being now regarded as a new and very distinct species, we
have not hesitated to reproduce of its natural size a bird that
Wilson has already represented reduced one half; but his figure
of the adult being remarkably good, we have thought it best to
give the young, with the subjoined description, referring the
reader for other particulars to the accurate account of our prede-
cessor.
The Young Semipalmated Plover is seven inches long, and
fourteen in extent: the bill is almost entirely black, being destitute
of orange, and with no more than a little dirty yellowish flesh-
colour at the base of the under mandible. The frontlet, continued
into the lora, and dilating broadly on the auriculars, is of a
darkish gray colour, somewhat tinged with brown: a frontal band
obscurely continued over the eyes is white; there is no sincipital
black band: the top of the head is grayish brown down to the
neck, which colour unites and forms a single mass with the
auriculars already described : the throat to the very origin of the
bill, and all the under parts, are pure white, with the exception
of a collar on the breast, which, as a continuation of the colour of
the back, is of a brownish gray: the white encroaches somewhat
upon the middle of this collar on the lower side ; and extends in
a broad ring all round the neck: after this collar, the whole upper
parts of the body are brownish gray, precisely of the same hue as
the top of the head, and like it have each feather slightly edged
with pale. The wings are four and three quarter inches long,
exactly reaching the tip of the tail, the smaller and middle coverts
O
VOL. IV.-A a

94
YOUNG SEMIPALMATED PLOVER.
a
and tertials are of the colour of the body; the larger are darker,
white at the tips, and they form a conspicuous band across; the
spurious wing and under wing-coverts are white, somewhat mixed
with dingy: the quill-feathers are dark gray, blackish at their
point, and on their outer web: the shaft of all is white towards
the middle, and the secondaries have moreover a white spot along
it. The tail is two and a half inches long, slightly rounded : the
outer and shortest feather is white, with a small elongated spot
towards the middle of its inner web; the second each side has a
much broader and darker one extending on both webs, dingy at
base and pure white on the shaft and at tip only: all the remaining
ones are dusky at base, with a broad black space towards the
point, and are terminated with white, less pure and less extended
according as they are nearer to the true middle ones, which are
merely edged with whitish. The feet are yellowish; the tarsus
is almost an inch long, and the middle toe three quarters; the
outer is connected to the second joint with the middle one by a
membrane; and the inner is also connected with the middle, but
no farther than the first joint.
In the adult, well described by Wilson, the bill is orange
beyond the middle, black at the point: the margins of the eyelids
are orange: the irides are brown: the front, throat, neck broadly
round, and all beneath pure white : the head is of a gray colour,
somewhat tinged with reddish: a broad sincipital band, and a
broad ring round the base of the neck jet black : lora, continued
through the eye into a broad patch dilating on the auriculars,
blackish: the back and wing-coverts are rufo-cinereous: the quills
are blackish, the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth being white along
the shaft : the secondaries are rufo-cinereous, white at their tips :
the tail is blackish, and quite black towards the point; the outer
tail-feather is white, the second, third and fourth being also white
at their tips.
.

YOUNG SEMIPALMATED PLOVER,
95
In size, this species comes nearest Charadrius curonicus (minor)
of Europe, but in colour and all else most resembles C. hiaticula.
On the coasts of New Jersey, this species arrives late in April,
keeping then in flocks, and until late in May, when they depart in
search of more northern climes. No instance is known of their
breeding in the United States, but their flocks reappear periodi-
cally in September, protracting their stay till the last of October.
They run with rapidity, uttering a rather hissing short note,
esembling the syllable thyk, thyk. It is a remarkable fact that
these closely related species of Ring-Plovers, hardly cognizable
at a distance by the eye, are at once detected by a practised ear,
their note being so very different. For who could mistake the
hissing voice of the present for the soft and musical tones of the
Piping species, so happily compared by Wilson to a German flute.
It is equally well known that the species of Europe differ also in
this respect from each other, the true hiaticula having very nearly
the same hissing voice as the Semipalmated, whilst the curonicus
has a very melancholy cry, resembling Kirw! Kirw !

96
PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
ARDEA PEALII.
Plate XXVI. Fig. 1.
Ardea Pealii, Nov. in Ann. Lyc. New York, II, p. 155. Id. Cat. birds U. S. in Contr.
Macl. Lyc. Id. Syn. birds U. S.
My collection
Among the numerous and still badly known tribes of Herons—a
genus which even as reduced according to the sounder views of
modern authors, yet consists of about fifty species, spread pretty
nearly in equal numbers over all parts of the world-a small
group has been distinguished in common language before it was
recognised by naturalists, under the name of Egret, and it may
be
admitted into the system as a secondary division of the subgenus
Ardea, as this is distinguished from Botaurus, Nycticorax, &c.
Their elegance of shape, long and slender bill, but especially
their snowy whiteness, and the flowing train of plumes by which
they are adorned in the perfect state, make them easily cognizable
even at a distance, and seem fully to entitle them to such a
distinction. But this very similarity, as one may well imagine,
renders the several species, for there are several of them, liable
to be easily confounded together. Besides their remarkable
similarity of form, colours are wanting to discriminate them; and
we are reduced to those exhibited by the bills, lora and feet, to
the proportions of the bird and its respective members, and to
the nature of the plumage of the crest and trains that ornament
the adults. The privation of these ornaments in the
.
young, and
in the adults also when moulting, increases the difficulty, and has

ME
Drawn from Nature by A.Rider.
Peals Egret Heron.
Esquimauv Carlar
ਇਸ ਲਈ ਉਸ
DITT
o con
Engraved by Alexander Lansen.
Swlopacious Cemilan
Aramus Scolopacus.
Ardea Scale
rumeni Berealis.
26


PEALE’S EGRET HERON.
97
66
caused them to be taken until lately for distinct species : fortu-
nately this source of confusion has been removed; and the females
have been ascertained to be similar to their males. The species
of Europe and Northern Asia were therefore upon good grounds
reduced to two, the Great and the Small, A. alba and A. Garzetta;
but both formerly, and one even till now, were confounded with
their two American analogues described by Wilson. In my
“Observations on the Nomenclature" of that author, as well as
my subsequent writings, without excepting my Synopsis, I admit-
ted the two North American species, and added as a third, the bird
now represented in our plate, but I also erred in considering the
large American species as the same with the large European :
they are in fact no less distinct from each other, however closely
related, than Ardea candidissima and A. Garzetta. The name
of alba belongs to the European, and that of egretta to the
American ; although Illiger, Lichtenstein, (and Temminck ?) not
perceiving that it was the legitimate egretta of Gmelin and
Latham, and having applied that name to the European alba, have
given the American the new one of A. leuce.
Mr. Ord, in the second edition of Wilson's Ornithology, was
therefore right in doubting the identity of the two species, and I
was mistaken when I declared his doubts unfounded: but he ought
not to have quoted as synonymous A. egretta of Temminck, &c.
Indeed, I am unacquainted with a single instance in which upon
due examination the rule will not hold good, that no bird is com-
mon to both continents that does not inhabit during summer the
high northern latitudes, and the Ardea alba and A. egretta are not
winter birds, but on the contrary summer visitants of Europe and
the United States, and do not even then range far to the North :
the European moreover is chiefly found in the east, and hardly
ever seen in the west of that continent. This alone ought to have
led us to detect the discrepancy. In order to clear up this point
VOL. IV.-Bb

98
PEALE’S EGRET HERON.
before taking up the species which more immediately forms our
subject, I think it proper to fix all the species of Egrets of which
I have a perfect knowledge. These are :-
1. Ardea alba, L. (Ardea Egretta, Temm. Ardea candida, Briss.)
which can easily be distinguished by its large stature, combined
with a small crest, (which is wholly wanting in the American,) a
much longer bill and longer tarsi, and the fusco-corneous colour
of the legs. It is well figured by Naumann, Vog. Nachtr. tab. 46,
f. 91, and the young by Roux, Ornithologie Provençale, pl. 314
(under the name of Egretta). It inhabits Europe, especially the
Oriental parts, and is very common in the Caspian sea, in Asiatic
Turkey, &c.
2. The second species is Ardea Egretta, Gmel. Lath. (Ardea
leuce, Temm.) the one figured by Wilson, whose tall stature allows
it to be confounded with the preceding, from which, however, it
may be readily distinguished by its perfectly smooth head, its
light orange and shorter bill, and black legs. It is found both in
North and South America, being mentioned by d'Azara, and we
have ourselves received it from Surinam.
3. The third is Ardea flavirostris, Temm. not yet figured. A
smaller bird, with black legs also, at once known from its two
above-mentioned close analogues; from the European by its yel-
low bill, from the American by its small crest. It is found in
Southern Africa and the Australian Islands.
4. The fourth Egret in point of stature is the one we are
treating of, well distinguished by its bill, which is flesh-colour at
base, besides the different texture of the ornamental feathers.
As a fifth species we shall cite the Ardea candidissima of Wilson,
which is the analogue of the Ardea Garzetta of Europe, figured by
Roux, Orn. Prov. pl. 315. Both these are alike in stature and
dimensions, and differ only, as is well known, by the crest, which
in the latter consists of but two or three elongated, narrow, subu-

LIBRARY
ENTRSITY
en X, as
OF THE
8 ะมอ
AICING
PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
99
late feathers; while in the American the crest is formed of
numerous elongated pendulous feathers, with loose flowing barbs.
Specimens that we have received from Java under the name of
Ardea nigripes, Temm. we consider as the young of A. Garzetta,
and are confirmed in this opinion by the fact of young birds that
we possess of the American candidissima that stand precisely in
the same relation to this species that the supposed nigripes does
to the Garzetta. *
The family of the Herodii, Cultrirostres, or Ardeidæ, especially
when the group Gruinæ is withdrawn, and restricting it to our
former Ardeina, is a highly natural one. It still comprises, it is
true, many aberrant genera, birds of peculiar forms, and remark-
,
able for their strange and oddly shaped bills, though still not so
far different as to rank them more properly with any other class;
and in their general structure, as well as their habits and dispo-
sitions too much identified with these to justify their separation
into an independent family. But the Gruinæ, of which the Crane
is the type, bear a strong analogy, and even in many respects
so much affinity to the Gallinaceous birds, having shorter feet,
vegetable food, and even their habits being terrestrial, that we
think proper to unite them as a subdivision or subfamily with the
Alectrides. The artificial character (which, as we are not now
treating of them, is all that need be mentioned,) by which they
may be at once distinguished from the Ardeidæ, consists in having
the hind toe short, and inserted so high up as to be raised from
the ground except merely at the tip; while in the Ardeidæ it is
long and bears with its whole length on the ground, or nearly so.
But as, according to the axiom of the great Linné, the character
does not constitute the genus, even if the most general and
*
I have lately been informed of the discovery of two new European species of Egrets,
one from Sardinia, the other from Moldavia, of which the names and characters are not
yet given.

100
PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
characteristic mark should fail us, it is still no reason why the
group is not natural which it has hitherto been believed to
represent. A minute peculiarity may furnish a most useful though
artificial generic or specific character, while an apparently impor-
tant and evidently natural one may be of no use for this purpose.
In our system the family Ardeidæ is composed of nine genera, of
which none is subdivided except Ardea itself, which with Ciconia
are all that are strictly typical. Besides the more direct relations,
this family is connected with the Rallidæ by the curious though
anomalous Courlan, also allied to the Gruinæ by its feet, as well
as to the Scolopacidæ. But to these the genus Eurypyga forms a
very strongly marked and still better passage. At the same time
the Platalea, which in its feet shows the transition to Phoenicop-
teridæ, and by its curiously flattened bill stands alone, is so similar
in internal conformation, and especially the sternal apparatus to
the genus Ibis that they ought in this respect to go together;
though Tantalus, one of the Ibidæ, is constructed rather upon the
osseous plan of the Ardeidæ! Scopus, Anastomus, Canchroma, and
even Dromas to a minor extent, each and all exhibit striking
anomalies in their bills, so that Ardea and Ciconia are the only two
typical genera with sharp-pointed bills of the whole group. In
order to comprehend all these forms of bills, it becomes necessary
to restrict greatly the physical characters of the family, and we
can merely observe that in the Ardeidæ the bill, whatever be its
form, is longer than the head, very robust, and almost always
sharp, with cutting edges. The neck is long. The feet long, and
always four-toed, the hind toe strong and well developed: the
tarsus is longer than the middle toe, and toes and nails both are
also long. The wings are of moderate length, and obtuse. The
tail is never long, nor otherwise remarkable, and consists of
twelve, or only of ten feathers.
There is no marked external difference between the sexes, but

PEALE’S EGRET HERON.
101
the young vary greatly from the adults, and do not gain their
complete plumage till their third year.
In habits and internal conformation these birds are all much
more alike than in external. They have all a grave, deliberate,
and well poised gait: their flight is slow, though light and ele-
vated, and they stretch back their legs like sticks in flying, even
more so than other Waders. They are faithfully monogamous in
their loves : their nests are built with more art than those of
aquatic birds generally, being placed in trees, thickets, aquatic
grasses, and some of the species, half domesticated, even nestle
on housetops: the female incubates, while the male merely
watches, and supplies her with food. Both unite in nursing and
rearing their young, which remain in the nest until they are full-
fledged. The flesh of these Waders is quite unpalatable.
The genus Ardea, when disembarrassed of the several spe-
cies forced into it by ancient authors, is a very natural one,
differing from the Storks by having the inner toe cleft, whilst
they have all the toes semipalmated at base: the Storks also
have the tarsi reticulated, and the middle toe-nail entire, whilst
the Herons have the former scutellated and the latter toothed
like a saw, to assist in seizing and securing their slippery prey.
A peculiarity of the Herons, in which they not only differ
from the Storks, but from all other birds, is found in their
anatomy: they have but one cæcum, like quadrupeds, while other
birds have two. The genus Ardea is admitted by all authors,
.
though some modern writers have cut it up into several, which
we employ as subgenera, or groups of still minor importance.
Generally divided into three, and by Boie into five, they might
with the same propriety be carried to seven or eight; we recog-
nise no more than three, comprising eight secondary groups.
The first, which we call more properly Heron, (Ardea,) is well
distinguished by its long and slender neck, all well clothed with
.
VOL. IV.CC

102
PEALE’S EGRET HERON.
shortish appressed feathers; and by having a very large part of
the tibia naked.
The second, called Bittern, (Botaurus,) has the neck shortish,
with loose, longish feathers, and the posterior more or less disti-
chous and lanuginous: the naked part of the tibia is much limited.
In all the Herons the bill is more or less longer than the head,
cleft to beneath the eyes, straight, compressed, conic-elongate,
acuminate and very acute, higher than wide, and more or less
robust. Both mandibles are near their base covered with a kind
of very thin cere or membrane: the upper is scarcely longer than
the lower mandible, and equal in height: it is longitudinally
impressed on the sides with a straight furrow obliterated before :
the upper ridge is therefore rather distinct and flat at base,
terminated by the frontal feathers transversely placed; towards
the point the ridge is perfectly smooth, compressed, and slightly
and gradually inclined at tip: the edges, nearly vertical, in some
species are perfectly entire, in others obliquely and finely denti-
culated, in all emarginated at the extreme tip: the palate has in
the middle a longitudinal sword-like process, perfectly straight,
which towards the throat is more or less conspicuously doubled :
the lower mandible has strong and flattened sides, more or less
impressed towards the base; it is sharply acute, with the edges
drawn in, excessively sharp, quite straight, either entire or slightly
serrated obliquely: the inferior ridge is slightly compressed,
rather acute, and more or less ascending; the mental angle is
extended beyond the middle of the mandible, is exceedingly
narrow, very acute, and feathered : the lora are naked, as well as
a portion of the orbits. The nostrils, not quite basal, are placed
in the furrow, and are linear, longitudinal, pervious, and above
half closed by a naked membrane. The tongue is half the length
of the bill, acute, very entire, narrow, membranous, and rather
flattened. The body is much compressed. The feet are equili-
2

PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
103
:
brate, long and four-toed: the tarsus is always longer than the
middle toe, sometimes barely so, sometimes a great deal: in some
species the tibia is almost entirely naked, whilst in others it is on
the contrary nearly all feathered: the toes are elongated, slender,
narrowly bordered by a membrane, all unequal; the middle is con-
nected to the outer one by a membrane that extends to the end
of the first joint; the inner toe, a little shorter than the outer, is
merely furnished with a very minute basal membrane : the hind
toe is long, half equal to the middle one, and all bearing on the
ground, being inserted opposite to the inner toe: the nails are
compressed, falcate, the hind one largest: the middle one is
dilated on the inside into a pectinated sharp edge. The coverings
of the tarsi are transversely clypeate, the upper and lower clypei
being scutelliform, the opisotarsus and knee are covered with
small hexagonal scales; the toes are scutellated. These various
forms of the scales are represented with inimitable accuracy by
Mr. Lawson in the plate of Peale’s Egret. The wings are broad,
obtuse, tuberculated, the three outer primaries being longest, and
the third hardly shorter than the two first. The tail is short and
obtuse, and composed of ten or twelve feathers. The feathers of
the lower neck before in the adult bird are pendulous, elongated,
mostly acuminate, narrow, or ragged: on the occiput and back
they are in many species elongated, sericeous, either linear, or
laciniate-lacerated, seldom dense, oblong or rounded at the end ;
the neck is bare at base on the sides, but concealed by a tuft of
longish plumes originating at the shoulders : the neck-feathers in
some species are short and closely pressed to the body; in others
they are softer, longer, especially on the sides, and woolly at
base: the tail-feathers are always rounded at the end; those of
the lower parts of the body are longish with the webs disjoined,
and the barbs plumulose at base : the down is silky.
The females are like the males : the young are different from
:

104
PEALE’S EGRET HERON.
the adults, only obtaining their full plumage after the third year.
They moult annually. The adults are ornamented by long
slender feathers, which they lose in moulting, and do not acquire
again for some time, when they resemble the young.
These birds are remarkably dull: they inhabit marshes, or
watch perched on trees near the water for their prey, which the
conformation of their feet enables them to do with ease. They
feed exclusively on animals, especially fishes and reptiles, but
likewise large insects, and even small mammalia. They often
stand motionless on the margins of ponds or marshes, concealed
by the tall grass and weeds, with the neck so bent as to rest the
head on the back, waiting patiently for their prey to pass within
their reach, when they dart forward their sharp bill with inevi-
table aim: but when tired of this, which is often unsuccessful,
they overcome their natural indolence so far as to move slowly
through the mud or water, stirring up as they walk by means of
their long toes the frogs or fishes that may be lurking in such
places. Timid and cowardly to a great degree, the smallest
Hawk will turn their flight and often master them, though capable
of inflicting a dangerous blow with their powerful beak. They
build in companies in high trees, laying about four eggs. The
parents are, to a proverb, tender of their offspring, and carefully
provide for them during the long time that they require their
assistance. Their voice is loud, hoarse, and monotonous, and
heard chiefly at night, when most of them are in motion. Their
flight is full of grace, and is performed with the neck bent
backwards, and the head resting against the back.
The numerous species of this genus are dispersed over all
climates and countries, excepting the very coldest.
In no group
does the size vary to the same extent, as is exemplified in the
American species by the gigantic Ardea herodias and diminutive
Ardea exilis.

PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
105
The Herons properly so called, forming our subgenus Ardea, of
which the group Egretta is a subdivision, have the bill much
longer than the head, at base as broad, or even broader than high,
and quite straight. Their neck is very long, slender, and orna-
mented beneath with slender, elongated, pendent plumes: their
flanks are thin, their legs very long, and have an extensive naked
space above the heel.
They are more diurnal than nocturnal in their habits, are the
tallest of the genus, and for the most part feed on fishes. There
is scarcely a fish, however large, that a Heron will not strike at
and wound, even if unable to carry it off. They both seize them
in shallow water by darting their bill, or in deep water by
plunging it under as they pass on the wing: they are therefore
extremely injurious to fish-ponds, which they devastate to an
incredible extent, and consume so great a quantity that a single
Heron will destroy in a year several thousand large fishes, without
taking into account the small fry which are their chief depend-
Even when gorged with prey, these greedy birds will sit
meditating further mischief, with their long necks sunk between
their shoulders, and their heads turned to one side, intently eyeing
the pool; and their extraordinary power of digestion soon enables
them to recommence their task. But like other lean and hungry
gluttons, the Heron is never satisfied, his food avails him not,
and he is generally an emaciated mass of skin and bones. They
do not hide themselves in grassy places, nor attempt to escape
danger by retreating to them, but on the contrary are careful to
seek their prey where the weeds are not too high to prevent them
from observing the approach of an enemy, to escape whom flight
is their only resource. Highly social in their disposition, they
travel, fish, and keep together in parties, and build on trees or
hanging cliffs, hundreds in company, in retired haunts, where
they may expect to enjoy perfect quiet and security. Several of
VOL. IV.-Dd
ence.

106
PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
He finds every
these retreats are celebrated both in America and Europe. The
naturalist whose courage and perseverance enable him to pene-
trate the swamps, and a thousand difficulties that surround one of
these recesses, and render them nearly inaccessible, is amply
repaid by the astonishing spectacle he witnesses.
branch, every fork, the top of every bush covered with the nests
of these birds; and the ear is stunned with the cries and flapping
of the wings of the alarmed multitude. The parents, and such of
the young as can fly, at once depart, their numbers obscuring the
sky: but their attachment for their offspring overcoming their
fears, the parents soon return to their defence, and boldly attack
any enemy, so that even the blows of sticks, or the report of the
fatal gun has no terror for them. Their nests are made with
sticks, and lined with wool; but if they find a nest already made,
they do not take the pains to build a new one.
Their young are
as voracious and hard to satisfy as themselves.
The Egret Herons are entirely of a snowy whiteness, without
any coloured markings on the plumage whatever. We even
exclude from them the Ardea russata that visits occasionally the
south of Europe, and possesses when adult in the greatest degree
the long flowing ornamental plumes. This, with the ralloides,
speciosa of Java, &c., we consider as forming a group equivalent
in rank to Egret, and we apply to it Boie's name of Buphus.
Our second subgenus, Botaurus, including the Bittern, Night
Herons, and other groups of authors, is characterized by the bill
being hardly longer than the head, much compressed, higher
than broad, with the upper mandible somewhat curved. Their
legs are comparatively short, and the naked space on the tibia
restricted: their neck is rather short, thickly and closely covered
with long, broad, and loose erectile feathers, and merely downy
above: their body is comparatively plump, even fleshy, and
sometimes good eating. They are chiefly nocturnal, and haunt
,

PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
107
in marshy and sedgy places. Their food is principally reptiles,
insects, worms, fish-spawn, and they even eat vegetables, and
are not by any means so destructive as the Herons proper, nor so
skilful at fishing. The birds of this subgenus never sit in open
places, but on the contrary keep concealed amongst the highest
reeds or grasses, and if an enemy approaches their retreat, they
either squat on the ground, or escape between the reeds, and
never resort to their slow, heavily raised flight, but in the last
extremity. Instead of high trees, the Bitterns place their nest in
a sedgy margin, or among the rushes; and instead of sticks and
wool, they are contented with simpler materials, such as sedge,
leaves of water-plants or rushes; and they lay seven or eight eggs,
twice the number of the true Herons. The young do not require
for so long a period the parental care, but on the contrary follow
the mother after a few days. When excited, the Bitterns have a
,
curious mode of erecting their loose neck-feathers, causing it to
appear very much enlarged. Although well defined as a group,
these birds are connected with the true Herons by means of inter-
mediate species that might with propriety be placed in either : as
an example of the intermediate species more allied to the Herons,
we might quote the beautiful A. ralloides of southern Europe,
which we look upon as the type of the group Buphus. Of those
nearer to Botaurus, A. virescens is an example, with the form of
the Herons, but the plumage of the Bitterns: we establish it as
the type of a natural though secondary group, to which we cannot
do better than apply the name of Herodias, proposed by Boie.
In the subgenus Botaurus also, nature has pointed out several
small sections, of which nomenclators have eagerly availed
themselves: as among the Herons we have noticed the Egrets,
Herons proper, Herodias, and Buphus, we may also indicate the
Nycticoraces among the Bitterns, which are distinguished by
wearing in the adult state long, tapering occipital feathers;
:

108
PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
and the A. stellaris of Europe, together with its close analogue,
A. minor of Wilson, may be regarded as the types of a similar
small group: another group hardly distinct had been called
Crabier by the French, but without any fixed character: we have
divided these Crabiers into two groups, and made them regular
by arranging them near the limits of our two subgenera: the
larger striated species of Bitterns have also been called Onorés,
(Tigrisoma, Sw.)
A third subgenus, which we first instituted, and called Ardeola,
contains only three species, the smallest of the tribe, and closely
allied in form and even markings : one is the European Ardea
minuta, the other the American Ardea exilis, and the third a still
less, the New-Holland Ardea pusilla. In these the female differs
somewhat from the male, and the young is different from both.
The bill of these small Herons is much the same as that of the
true Heron, being longer than the head, higher than broad at
base, and with the upper mandible nearly straight: the neck
likewise is elongated and rather slender; but, as in the Bitterns,
it is merely downy above, and thickly covered on the remaining
parts with long, loose, and broad erectile feathers : the body is
slender, and exceedingly compressed, like that of the Rails, of
which they remind one: the legs are comparatively short, but
what strikes most, as a circumstance extraordinary in the Waders,
their tibiæ are completely feathered, as in the Woodcock and the
land birds: the membrane that unites the toes is moreover simply
rudimental.
These birds, which are chiefly nocturnal, have much of the
habits of the Rails. They live and propagate in marshy grounds,
hiding closely amongst the reeds, and running far and very fast
in them rather than take wing. They feed on small fishes,
reptiles, spawn, but more especially on water insects.
Returning to our Egret, whose claims to be considered new

PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
109
:
have been set forth in the first page of this article, we have to
state that it is dedicated to Mr. Titian Peale, by whom it was
first shot for us in Florida, as a just compliment to a naturalist
to whom American Zoology owes so much, and from whom so
much may still be expected, retaining as he does all that zeal for
science for which his family has been long conspicuous.
We regret not being able to relate any peculiarity in the habits
of this bird, which besides Florida, inhabits other analogous
climates of America. It is never seen in the middle states, but
appears not to be rare in Florida, for since the individual first
brought by Mr. Peale, we have observed it in almost all the
collections of birds sent from that country.
Peale’s Egret Heron is twenty-six inches long : the bill five
inches, flesh-colour for nearly three inches from the base, then
black to the point; the lora and naked parts of the face are of the
same flesh-colour, but more delicate : the plumage is uniformly
and without exception snowy white, as in all the Egrets: the head
nearly from the origin of the bill down to the neck, is thickly and
densely set with a large crest, formed of numerous, compact,
subulate feathers, more than three inches long ; a bunch of these
feathers, precisely of the same texture, and even longer, hangs
down from the front part of the neck. The structure of these
feathers most resembles that of the corresponding plumes of the
A. Garzetta, and is totally different from those of the candidissima.
The long flowing plumes of the back are filiform, or criniform,
rather than silky, being by no means delicate, and reach much
beyond the tail, with their rays quite straight and rather stiff,
and by no means curled, nodding, or divaricate, as in the candi-
dissima. The wings are thirteen inches long: the tail is four.
The legs, including the toes and nails, are all black, the toes
yellow beneath : the nakedness of the tibia extends more than
three inches: the tarsus is full six inches long, that is, twice as
VOL. IV.-Ee

110
PEALE'S EGRET HERON.
long as the middle toe and nail : the hind toe without the nail
measures more than an inch.
The young is distinguished by smaller proportions, a circum-
stance for which this group is more than usually remarkable, and
by the absence of the ornamental feathers : we have, however,
always observed, even in very young specimens, the tendency of
the head-feathers to be long and pointed to a considerable extent,
indicating the future crest.

SCOLOPACEOUS COURLAN.
111
ARAMUS SCOLOPACEUS.
Plate XXVI. Fig. 2.
Ardea scolopacea, GMEL. Syst. Nat. I, p. 647, sp. 87. Lath. Ind. Orn. II, p. 701,
sp. 89, a very bad description.
Aramus scolopaceus, VIEILL. Nouv. Dict. VIII, p. 300. Id. Gal. Ois. II, p. 134, pl.
252. Nob. Ann. Lyc. New York, II, p. 155. Id. Specch. comp. sp. Philad. Id.
,
.
Cat. and Syn. birds U. S. sp. 237.
Aramus Carau, VIEILL. Nouv. Dict. VIII, p. 301.
Rallus Guarauna, ILL. (mentio duntaxat.)
Rallus gigas, Licht. Berlin. Vög. Verz. p. 79, sp. 815.
Rallus ardeoides, Spix, Av. Brasil. II, pl. 91.
Rallus giganteus, NoB. Add. Orn. U. S. in Journal Ac. Nat. Sc. Philad. V, p. 31.
Nothorodius Guarauna, WAGLER, Syst. Avium, I, sp. 1. Goldfuss, Nat. Allas,
Aves, pl. 239.
Courliri Courlan, VIEILL. loc. cit.
Guarauna, MarcoR. Brasil, p. 204.
Courlan ou Courliri, BUFF. Ois. VII, p. 442. Id. ed. 1783, VIII, p. 266. Id. pl.
enl. 848.
Carau, d'AZARA, Voy. IV, p. 223, sp. 366, an excellent description.
Scolopaceous Feron, LATH. Syn. V, p. 102, sp. 79. ID. Gen. Hist. VIII, p. 135. sp. 116.
My collection.
HERE is a bird, which, if any, might be considered as partaking
of a double nature, some authors having regarded it as a Heron
allied to the Rails, and others as a Rail somewhat analogous to
the Herons. But notwithstanding these more striking affinities,
and
many
besides that shall be carefully pointed out, for it is not
contented with these, it fully deserves to constitute a genus by
itself. After due consideration, therefore, we have withdrawn it

112
SCOLOPACEOUS COURLAN.
from the Rails, where, unconsciously coinciding in this with Spix,
Illiger, and Lichtenstein, we at first arranged it; and finding the
genus Aramus already proposed for it by Vieillot, willing as we
are to admit it to this rank, we do not hesitate a moment to adopt
his name, and although we must acknowledge ourselves equally
unable with Dr. Wagler to explain the meaning or etymology of
the word, we do not think this any reason why we should, with
the German ornithologist, apply to this bird a new compound
signifying Spurious Heron.
It was supposed that South America might furnish us with a
second species of Courlan, but it being now a well ascertained
fact that the Carau of d’Azara is the same as the Guarauna of
Marcgrave, the bird must stand alone in his genus unless new
discoveries shall supply him with a companion. This being
settled, we shall proceed to give a minute description, that will
therefore comprehend both its generic and specific characters.
Although there can be no doubt that our bird is the Guarauna
of Marcgrave, it would be committing a great error to take it for
the Scolopax, (or Numenius) Guarauna of systematical writers, that
being a very different bird, a species of genuine Ibis, which they
ought to place under their Tantalus, and which has nothing in
common with our bird except a somewhat similar speckled
appearance, the only source of all this confusion.
Instituting a genus for this bird does not however decide the
question where it ought to be placed, for it may still be inquired,
in what part of the system shall we arrange the genus. The
reader cannot fail to be surprised that we, who made a species
of Rail of the same bird, should place it, as a genus, in a very
distant family. But this is the result of more mature reflection,
and however apparently remote may appear to be at first sight
the two families Rallidæ and Ardeidæ, we have already seen that
the subgenus Ardeola claims some analogy with the former, and

SCOLOPACEOUS COURLAN.
113
a
a
the Aramus forms a still better and closer link. It was principally
on account of the greatly compressed form of its body that we
called it a Rail, and upon well examining the singular form of its
bill, which is not observed in any other bird, every ornithologist
will be satisfied of the propriety of the course we have finally
adopted. We have no hesitation in placing it in the Ardeidæ,
where it is eminently distinguished from all its fellow genera
by its toes cleft to the base and entirely separated. Together
with Eurypyga, it aberrates somewhat towards the Scolopacidæ,
whilst by the manner of insertion of its hind toe, it tends a little
towards the Psophida, subfamily Gruinæ, (Cuvier even going so far
as to make it a genuine Grus,) and claims again a well-founded
resemblance to the most typical form of the genus Rallus.
.
The Scolopaceous Courlan inhabits principally Cayenne, Brasil,
and Paraguay, where it is rather common: it is numerous in the
island of Cuba, and other warm parts of America. In the United
States, Florida appears to be its most natural residence, and a
few instances have occurred of its visiting the middle states.
The Courlan leads a solitary life, or at most keeps in pairs ;
night and day they cry out in a loud, sonorous, and resounding
voice, Carau ! being in the full sense of the word a Crying-bird :
its chief food is mollusca, and other aquatic animals, and even
frogs; but not snakes nor fishes: when frightened they move their
tail. Like all solitary and reserved characters, this bird is
remarkably shy: it carefully hides itself, but as soon as aware of
being discovered it starts rapidly to a great elevation, its flight
being long continued: they walk also with great agility, but never
willingly wade into the water : they alight on the very summit of
trees: they build in the grass near stagnant water, concealing
their nest with much art: they lay but two eggs: the young
follow their parents soon after they are hatched; and are covered
with blackish down, the throat only being whitish.
VOL. IV.-Ff

114
SCOLOPACEOUS COURLAN.
1
The specimen figured was a female, killed on the fifth of
February by Mr. Titian Peale, at Key Tavernier, on the Florida
reef. Mr. Peale took it for the much disputed Crying Bird of
Bartram. Mr. Peale saw no other individual, but that we have
described was brought by Mr. F. Cozzens from Florida: one or
two killed on the coast of New Jersey near Long Branch may
be seen in the American Museum at New York. Mr. Peale did
not hear the bird utter any sound; it was very unwilling to fly,
and caused him some trouble to make it rise from the thick
mangroves and other bushes where it kept. It appears to inhabit
the low shores and swamps of the rivers and lakes of Florida,
and perhaps Georgia, being merely a straggler north of this.
Even there we must conclude it to be rather a scarce species, as
Mr. Peale could never get information about it, and even upon
showing it to the most experienced sportsmen, they declared
themselves unacquainted with it, except a few who called it
Indian Hen, as they probably would any other rare bird of its
size. It runs through the grass exactly in the manner of the
Rails, compressing its narrow body to pass through a small hole,
and very difficult to catch when wounded.
The Scolopaceous Courlan is two feet and three-fourths of an
inch long, and three feet eight inches in extent. The bill, which
has but a small gape, and by no means extending like that of the
Herons to beneath the eyes, measures four and three-quarter
inches in length : of course it is longer than the head, and may
be called much lengthened; it is slender, quite straight, much
compressed, being more than thrice higher than broad, and of a
corneous consistence: the upper mandible is of equal height
almost throughout, slender, from the base to the middle it is
compressed, and channelled each side with a deep furrow covered
by a kind of cere-like membrane; from where the furrow ends it
swells slightly on each side, being there quite smooth, and even
a
:

SCOLOPACEOUS COURLAN.
115
fil
appearing polished: there is no vestige of a notch, as in the
Herons, and the margins are perfectly entire: these margins from
the middle to the angle of the mouth are revolute inside and
obtuse, towards the tip they are nearly vertical and acute,
forming throughout inside a straight medial channel; the upper
ridge is somewhat depressed at base, then slightly inclined to the
tip, being obtuse, and no where sharp: the lower mandible at base
and beyond the middle is of nearly equal height, straightish in
the middle; on the sides at base it is covered by a very thin
membrane, and slightly furrowed lengthwise; from the middle
to the point it is as smooth and polished as the upper one,
excessively compressed, with the ridge prominent, rather acute at
tip, the margins are perpendicular, approximated, very entire; the
bifurcation of the sides is very long, extending beyond the middle
of the mandible ; it is narrow, and the mental angle formed by it
naked, acute, entering the corneous substance of the bill. The
nostrils are placed rather distant from the base, and in the lateral
furrow, they are entirely perforated, longitudinal, and somewhat
elliptical: the tongue is elastic, narrow, and acute. The bill is
yellow at base, and of a corneous blue-black at tip: the eyelids
are yellow, the iris brown: the legs pale lead-colour, and the
nails black.
The feet are elongated, and much of the tibia naked, the bare
space measuring three inches: the tarsus, four and a half inches
long, much exceeds the middle toe: the four toes are slender, all
cleft from the base, long, unequal, and compressed; the inner is
a little shorter than the outer, the middle longest, measuring three
inches without the nail; the hind toe is rather more than one
inch, and slender: it is inserted in an unusual manner, opposite
to the base of the inner toe, but much higher, and with only the
last joint, which is very short, resting on the ground. The
unfeathered part of the tibia is covered behind with transverse

2
116
SCOLOPACEOUS COURLAN.
scutella, the anterior with large angulose scales; the tarsus behind
has a double longitudinal series of knobs, before it is covered
with oblique scutella ; the cnemidia, that is, the lower part of
the naked tibia, are squamulose; the toes scutulate, and warty
beneath: the nails are moderate, arcuated, acute; the hind nail
is rather the smallest : the middle is the largest, and dilates
internally into a sharp edge, perfectly entire, and by no means
pectinated, any opinions or statements to the contrary notwith-
standing
The body is compressed, but fleshy: the neck cylindrical and
slender: the face and lora entirely feathered. When it is stated
that some specimens have these parts bare, it is because the other
Guarauna, which is an Ibis, has been confounded with it. The
tail is moderate, scarcely six inches long, plane, broad, rounded,
and composed of twelve broad feathers.
The wings are twelve and a half inches long, ample, and
rounded-obtuse: the first quill is moderately long, and equal with
the eighth, and by more than two inches shorter than the second,
which is equal to the sixth : it is peculiarly shaped, narrower at
base than at tip, where it is very blunt: the third is the longest
of all, being however but little longer than the fourth.
The feathers of the neck are short, and rather narrow: those
of the body and wing-coverts are rounded on their margins, and
soft and dense, the inferior are somewhat loose on their borders.
There is no naked place on the sides of the breast, as in the
Herons. The general colour of the Courlan is a deep chocolate
brown, or fuscous sooty hue, reigning all over the bird: the
feathers are however paler on their margins, and there is on each
from the base along the middle, including the shaft, with the
exception of the tip, a large, broad lanceolate, pure white spot.
(In the Ibis Guarauna, the white occupies the margin instead
of the middle of the feathers.) This white spot is larger in

SCOLOPACEOUS COURLAN.
117
proportion to the size of the feather, so that it is more conspi-
cuous on the wing-coverts, both upper and under, especially as on
the back, not reaching to the tip, it is mostly concealed by the
overlapping of the feathers : on the larger coverts, however, it
consists of a mere streak, as well as on a few of the lower
tail-coverts and femorals: generally speaking, however, these
parts, as well as the rump, upper and lower tail-coverts, oute
large wing-coverts, vent, all the quills, and tail-feathers are
unspotted, and of a bright chocolate brown, with even a greenish
gloss, darker, and with purplish reflections on the quills and tail:
on the contrary, on the head and neck all round, the brown
colour is paler and duller, and as the feathers are on these parts
much smaller, the more extended white longitudinal spots are
more closely set, producing a thickly striated appearance. On
the crown and cheeks the white is moreover neither so pure nor
well defined, which, together with the much less intense ground
colour, gives these parts a rufous gray look: the throat is entirely
whitish.
The sexes present no difference, and the Young soon put on
the adult plumage.
VOL. IV.-Gg
ñ

118
ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
NUMENIUS BOREALIS.
Plate XXVI. Fig. 3.
Numenius borealis, Lath. Ind. II, p. 712, sp. 9, (not of Ord, which is N. hudsonicus.)
Nob. Obs. Wils. Orn. notes. Id. Cat. and Syn. birds U. S. sp. 244. Id. Monogr.
Num. in Osserv. Cuv. Règn. An. Id. Sp. comp. Rom. Phil. sp. Phil. 187.
Scolopax borealis, Forst. Phil. Trans. LXII, p. 431, (not of Gmel. &c. which is
Numenius hudsonicus.)
Numenius brevirostris, Licht. Cat. II, Vog. p. 75, sp. 774. TEMM. pl. col. 381.
Numenius cinereus, Sea-side lesser Curlew, BARTR. Trav. p. 292.
Courlis demi-bec, TEMM. loc. cit.
Chorlito champêtre ? AZARA, IV, p. 275, sp. 307.
Esquimaux Curlew, Lath. Gen. Syn. V, p. 125. LATH. Gen. Hist. IX, p. 180, sp. 10.
FORSTER, loc. cit. not of Pennant, which is N. hudsonicus.
American Museum at New York.
IN Wilson's standard work are described but two species of
Curlew, and no more than this are given by Temminck in his
very complete and excellent European Ornithology. We have
brought forward three North American and three European
species, which, contrary to the generally received opinion, are all
distinct from each other, and different in both continents, not one
being found in Europe that is also an inhabitant of America.
These facts, independent of any reference to the almost intermi-
nable confusion pervading the works of preceding authors, will
sufficiently justify us in repeating here and stating with more
details what we have published in our Monography; in which, if
no new species be introduced, (and the list is already too long,)
we hope to bave placed the old ones in a new and more advan-
tageous light.

ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
119
Perhaps no genus of birds has been less accurately studied,
and notwithstanding that it is exceedingly natural, it has but
very recently been restricted within its appropriate limits. The
appellation it bears was first given by Brisson, yet he was far
from assigning its true boundaries. In addition to the Curlews,
he comprised in Numenius a few other birds, (the Tantali of
Linné,) now forming the natural family of Tantalidæ, and divided
into the genera Tantalus and Ibis. The true Numenii had been
much more philosophically classed by Linné in his extensive
genus Scolopax, which, though not well formed, was still, with
very few exceptions, entirely composed of birds belonging to the
natural family Scolopacidæ. Under all circumstances, the union
of Numenius with Scolopax was far more natural than that with
Tantalidæ; and although we make use of the name given by
Brisson, the credit of establishing it in its present acceptation is
due to Latham, or perhaps to Illiger, who freed it from extra-
neous species, and we, with Temminck, Vieillot, and others,
adopt it as we find it. The species now regarded as Numenii
form a very natural group, being closely allied in manners,
colours, and somewhat even in size. Hence they have been
continually mistaken for each other, erroneously united, or wan-
tonly multiplied, as will be made amply apparent by the synonyms
and scientific history of each species.
All the species of Curlews have the bill very long, slender,
feeble, much arched, slightly compressed, almost cylindrical,
hard and obtuse at tip, and entire: the upper mandible is longest,
furrowed for three-fourths of its length, rounded towards the
tip; the lower a little shorter. The nostrils are basal, lateral,
longitudinal, linear, being placed in the furrow. The tongue is
very short, small, and acute. The face is attenuated, and wholly
feathered. The feet are rather elongated, slender, bare above
the heel; the tarsi cylindrical, half longer than the middle toe,

120
ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
with their integument reticulated : the three fore toes are short,
fimbriated, scutellated beneath, all connected at base by a short
membrane extending to the first articulation; the hind toe is
inserted high upon the tarsus, slender, short, but longer than a
phalanx of the fore toes, bearing on the ground only at tip; the
claws are arcuate, rather short, bluntish; the cutting edge of the
middle one being entire.
The wings are long, acute, falciform, with from twenty-eight to
thirty stiff quills: the first primary is longest; the scapulars are
elongated. The tail, rather short, is somewhat rounded, and of
twelve feathers.
They moult once annually: the females perfectly resemble the
males in colour, and the young only differ, but can be known at
once, by their bill being much shorter and less bent.
Possessing numerous general features common to the Waders
of their family, and a few of those which distinguish the Ibis and
Tantali, the Curlews have nevertheless some peculiar traits of
their own more easy to perceive than to define. Their physiog-
nomy may be thus described. They have a rather small head,
with a remarkably long, slender, and arched beak, longish neck,
and body deeper than broad, and apparently gibbous. The
wings are long, the tail moderate, the feet rather slender, though
not so much so as in the allied genera, and bare for a considerable
space above the heel (commonly, but improperly called the knee).
The toes remarkably short and stout. The plumage of the Cur-
lews is composed of a rather thick covering of somewhat loose,
though silky feathers, abundantly furnished with down. The
colours, consisting of a mixture of grayish brown, white, and
blackish, are very dull, and hardly vary in the different species.
The sexes are not distinguishable by difference of colour or
stature; the female is perhaps a trifle smaller than the male.
The young scarcely differ in plumage from the adults, but are

ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
121
well marked by their much shorter and straighter bill. They
moult but once during the year, and late in the season. We have
detected a clue to the species in the medial line of the crown,
the colour of the rump and of the under wing-coverts and long
axillary feathers.
The Curlews are mute, timid, shy and wary. They frequent
and seek their food in salt marshes, and along muddy coasts and
inlets, where at low water they may be observed in company
with other Waders on the mud flats, or at high water roaming
along the marshes. They but seldom alight on wet sands, and
only when muddy shores are not to be found; always preferring
such on account of their flexible bill. They seldom desert the
salt water, and are very rarely met with inland, at a distance
from the sea or large rivers: during summer, however, they often
frequent dry fields in search of berries. They run swiftly, being
much upon the ground: their flight is high, very rapid, and long
sustained. The voice of the Curlews is loud and whistling:
when about to commence their great periodical journies they
congregate in large flocks, rise to a great height, and extend
themselves into a vast line : whilst thus travelling onward, they
keep up an almost incessant whistling, carefully waiting for
each other. These companies only separate during the breeding
season. In captivity, though they may linger for weeks or
months, they seem to perish at last from the continued operation
of melancholy and want of proper food.
Their food is chiefly animal, and in a great degree marine.
They prey indifferently upon worms, insects, mollusca, crustacea,
and occasionally small fish, and are very dexterous in probing
the mud with their long, soft and slender bill, and pulling out of
their holes small shell-fish and crabs. In summer, however, they
are very fond of berries, especially those of Rubus trivialis or
Dewberries, and Empetrum nigrum, on which they soon fatten.
VOL. IV.-H h
.

122
ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
The spring is their season for breeding, and the northern
regions the place they prefer for this purpose. They are mono-
gamous, lay four or five pyriform eggs, which are deposited with
little art on a few bits of reeds or grass placed in the midst of
tufts, or in small bushes, for shelter; sometimes they are merely
dropped in sand-holes, or on wild open shores. Both sexes sit on
,
the eggs; but the young receive little attention from their parents,
and almost as soon as hatched provide for themselves, without
requiring their assistance.
This genus, though by no means numerous in species, is not
confined to any particular regions of either continent; but is
distributed every where along the shores from the frozen regions
of the North to those of the South Pole, and they appear also in
the torrid zone in winter. Their migrations may be traced from
North to South according to the seasons. They pass the winter
in our temperate regions, generally returning in May from the
South, and in September from the North.
In the economy of nature, these birds seem to be of some
importance in preventing the superabundant multiplication of
numerous marine animals, thus assisting to maintain the equi-
librium and preserve the harmony of the Animal Kingdom; as
the Flycatching birds serve to check the too great increase of
land insects. It is perhaps on this account that they are so
generally diffused. In relation to man they appear to be of no
less importance, since without being delicious, their flesh is very
palatable, and even, when they have fed and fattened on berries,
tender and excellent meat: when their nourishment has been
derived from the sea it is much inferior. They are pursued both
.
in Europe and America in various ways, and brought in numbers
to the city markets. In some districts their eggs are much sought
after, but those of other aquatic birds are mixed with them, and
offered for sale under the same name.

ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
123
Wherever the Curlews may be classed by ornithologists, their
rank in the system of Nature is at the head of the family Limicolæ,
which they connect with the Falcati. Their linear place, therefore,
is between the genera Ibis of the latter, and Tringa of their own
family: species of the latter genus are so closely related to them
as almost to fluctuate between the two genera. There is a
striking affinity on the one hand between some species of Ibis
and Numenius, and on the other between the smaller Numenii
and Tringæ with slightly curved bills, such as Tringa subarquata,
and also those with semipalmated feet, but especially when they
combine both these characters, as our new Tringa himantopus. In
their own very natural family, the Curlews are more immediately
related to Tringa and Limosa, both in aspect and manners. The
genus Scolopax we do not consider as approaching them within
several degrees.
Cuvier had attempted to divide this genus into two independent
subgenera, but unsuccessfully, and they must be relinquished
even as sections, inasmuch as the characters on which they are
based have no existence in nature, as he has since virtually
acknowledged by omitting all mention of the group Phæopus in
his new edition of the Règne Animal. This is in fact one of those
very natural small genera which do not admit even of well based
sections. If the species were numerous, we might perhaps divide
them into those with white rumps, and those which have no white
on that part, or into those showing the crown of the head marked
a central line, and those without this line. There being however
but few species, we consider it to be more philosophical to view
them as an undivided genus, beginning with the larger and ending
with the smaller species : but at all events the marks we have
indicated, (of the head and croupe,) together with those of the
under wing-coverts and long axillary feathers, furnish us with
what we have called the clue of the genus. For example, the
24

124
ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
Numenius arquata of Europe is distinguished by its head, not
parted by the central line, its large size, long arched bill,
white rump, white under wing-coverts and axillary feathers : its
American analogue, whose still longer bill has gained for it the
name of longirostris, has the croupe of the same dark colour as
the body, with the under wing-coverts, &c. rust-coloured. The
phæopus of Europe, and hudsonicus of North America, similar
in colour and stature, and each ornamented with the medial
coronal line, are in like manner distinguishable, the former by
the white, the other by the dark coloured croupe ; and by the
under coverts, in the European white banded with black, whilst
in the American they are banded with black and rusty.
The two smallest, the present American species, and the N.
tenuirostris of Europe, though less completely analogous, are never-
theless both destitute of the coronal line: the present has the
rump dark, and the under wing-coverts banded with black and
rusty; while the slender-billed has them pure white, as well as the
rump, and ground of the tail-feathers. The diminutive size of
the Esquimaux Curlew will certainly prevent its being confounded
with the gigantic N. longirostris, especially as its bill is remarkably
short, and but little arcuated.
The reader will here have already remarked, we are confident,
the curious fact, that all the European species of Numenius have
white rumps and white under wing-coverts; whilst the American
all have the former uniform in colour with the remainder of the
plumage, and the latter rust-coloured.
The true Esquimaux Curlew, (we say the true, for it is neither
the Esquimaux Curlew of Wilson nor of the Arctic Zoology,) is
one of the four species that are destitute of the medial coronal
line. It is easily known from the large species by its diminutive
size, from the small ones by wanting the white rump, from all
by its very short bill.

ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
125
2
It is but half the size of the species that has usurped its name
of Short-billed, being hardly fourteen inches in length, and twenty-
four in breadth. The bill is no more than two and a half inches
long, but little arched, remarkably slender, blackish, the lower
mandible rufous at base: the head is pale, with longitudinal
lines of brown: the forehead is deep brown, with pale spots ;
although there is no medial line, it is somewhat indicated by
yellowish marks on that part: the eyebrows and chin are whitish:
the neck, breast, belly and vent are rufous-white, the two first
dashed with brown streaks and arrowheads, and a few slender
streaks on the vent: the feathered parts of the thighs are rufous-
white, spotted with brown; the sides under the wings, rufous,
transversely fasciated with brown: the back is of a deep brown, the
feathers margined with yellowish-gray in a serrated manner, and
the croupe is uniform with the rest. The wings are long, reaching
much beyond the tail; they are brown; the shafts of the prime
quills are white; the secondaries and lesser coverts margined
with gray: the lower coverts, as well as the long axillary feathers,
are ferruginous banded with brown: the rump is brown, the
feathers edged and spotted with whitish. The tail is short,
.
brown-ash crossed with darker bands, and slightly edged with
whitish. The legs are bluish black; the tarsus is one and
three-quarter inches long. The female is perfectly similar to the
male, except a very little inferiority in size.
This exclusively American bird is widely spread throughout
both sections of the new continent, being traced from the fens
of Hudson's Bay in the extreme north, to the warm climates of
Brasil, Monte Video, and Paraguay, a circumstance which, how-
ever recently observed, or extraordinary, is often repeated with
the Waders that are peculiar to America. D'Azara informs us
that in Paraguay this species makes its passage in the month of
September, and keeps in the open champaigns, either wet or dry,
VOL. 17.-Ii

126
ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
:
and never on the borders of rivers or marshes : hence he calls it
field Curlew, Chorlito champêtre.
At Hudson's Bay this Curlew makes its appearance early in
May, coming from the south, and going further north, returning
again to Albany Fort in August: it remains there till September,
when it departs for the south. It is common in Maine and Nova
Scotia during the months of October and November, and still more
so at Newfoundland. We have received it from Maine, and from
Prairie du Chien in Michigan, and have occasionally met with it
also in the markets of New York and Philadelphia: in the middle
states, however, it is by no means common, having escaped the
industrious Wilson. This fact proves that our Curlew is fond of
extremely remote regions, without remaining for any length of
time in the intervening countries between its winter and summer
residences. They collect in small flocks of from ten to twenty;
and when starting on the wing utter a cry resembling bibi; this
whistling note may be heard at a distance. The Esquimaux
Curlew lays four eggs, and keeps in flocks composed of young
and old together: they feed much on the berries of Empetrum
nigrum, which imparts to their flesh a delicate flavour.
It has been the lot of all the species of Curlews to be wantonly
confounded with each other: only two were reckoned as European,
and in them were merged as identical the three American. The
longirostris was first definitively disunited from the arquata by
Wilson. Vieillot unaccountably confounded as one two very
different species, giving it more than one name, however.
The
hudsonicus, though correctly described by Latham, was referred by
all writers, including Temminck, to the European Whimbrel, N.
phæopus. The present one he forbore, through extreme caution,
to unite also with it, observing that it might be a real species, or
at least a constant variety. But when the bird actually fell into
his hands, he called his specimens, which were from South Ame-

21
127
ESQUIMAUX CURLEW.
rica, Numenius brevirostris, not recognising in them the N. borealis
of Latham.
Although we call this bird Esquimaux Curlew, it would perhaps
be better to condemn this name altogether, and give this one the
really appropriate name of Short-billed Curlew, although this as
well as the former appellation has been misapplied. As for the
legitimate scientific name, this also might be disputed. Borealis
was first given by Gmelin to the Hudsonian Curlew, but as he
called them Scolopax, we have preferred retaining the appellation
of Latham, who is admirably correct with respect to the Curlews,
being only wrong perhaps in the choice of the name, and certainly
in the citation of Gmelin. As for Temminck, in declaring that
the new species of Lichtenstein differs essentially from Latham's
N. borealis, (a fact which was doubted by the accurate German
himself, he must have had in view our N. hudsonicus, Lath., the
Scolopax borealis of Gmelin.
We can form no opinion on the N. rufiventris of Vigors, a
supposed new Curlew from the North West Coast : the diagnosis
is certainly inconclusive, not embracing the essential characters;
and establishes no difference between it and N. hudsonicus, of
which it also has the size.
The N. madagascariensis of Brisson forms a seventh species of
Numenius peculiar to Southern Africa and Oceanica, allied to the
arquata and longirostris : it is figured on the pl. enl. 198 of Buffon.
We do not know either N. virgatus, or N. lineatus of Cuvier, but
one of them at all events will have to be referred to the madagas-
cariensis.
:

128
FLORIDA GALLINULE.
GALLINULA GALEATA.
Plate XXVII. Fig. 1.
Crex galeata, LICHTENSTEIN, Verzeich. Mus. Berlin. p. 81, sp. 826.
Gallinula chloropus, Nov. Cat. and Syn. birds U. S. sp. 275.
Fulica major pulla, fronte cera coccinea oblongo-quadrata glabra obducta, membrana
digitorum angustissima, BROWNE, Nat. Hist. of Jam. p. 479, (Red-faced Coote).
The Coot, SloANE, Jamaica, II, p. 320, sp. 15.
My collection
In all cases wherein we find two animals, however similar or
apparently identical in other respects, but restricted within
very
far distant localities, between which no line of communication can
be traced, and beyond which, as in the present case, they are not
known to perform great periodical migrations, we may boldly
assert that the individuals of the different countries belong to
distinct species, having sprung from a different centre of creation,
and not being descendants of the same original type. The few
known exceptions to this excellent general rule are daily falling
in with it, as they come under the closer observation of the more
and more practised eye of the naturalist; and since the separation
into different species of the Gallinules that inhabit the different
parts of the globe, there is reason to think that no exception
whatever will be admitted to exist, and that all that remain are
owing to the want of sufficiently minute comparison and exami-
nation. No birds, in fact, reappear in widely separated longitudes
under forms and colours so similar as the Gallinules, of which we
are treating, and if all the species were found in the same country,

RS
all
THE
VITE
impo
2
Drawn from Nature by. A Ridov,
Florida Gallinule.
Engraved by Aliando Sanson.
Gallinula qalvata.
Yellow breasted Rail.
hallus novel-eracensis.
27


FLORIDA GALLINULE.
129
they would hardly be looked upon even as individual varieties.
Yet upon the principle we have set forth, and which we do not
fear to maintain, they have a right, and ought properly to be
considered, as real species. How different is the stand we now
take, fortified by observations in the great field of nature, from
that arbitrarily adopted by Buffon; who on the contrary saw every
where the same species reproduced, but changed by climate, or I
know not what, and whenever he could referred every new bird
he met with to the paltry creations of Europe.
But to come to facts, and without longer indulging in theory, we
shall merely state that the Florida Gallinule differs specifically
from the common Gallinule of Europe no less than the Java
Gallinule, (Gallinula ardosiaca, Vieill.) although the differences are
almost imperceptible, so as to justify those who have not hitherto
distinguished between them, among whom we are to be included
ourselves. The true Gallinula chloropus is spread over all Europe
and the temperate parts of Asia, and is also met with throughout
the continent of Africa from east to west, and from north to
south.
We have examined specimens from Egypt, others from
Senegambia, and from the Cape of Good Hope. The size varies
much, even in specimens from the same country, but the G.
chloropus and ardosiaca have always the toes shorter than our
American analogue. In fact, even in the largest specimen exa-
mined by Lichtenstein, which was from Caffraria, and measured
fourteen and a half inches, the middle toe without the nail was
only twenty-six lines long: whilst in the Florida specimens of the
ordinary size of fourteen inches, the same toe measures at least
thirty-four lines. The tarsus likewise, and the other toes, are
proportionally longer, and this forms the best discriminating
mark. Another might also be drawn from the frontal clypeus,
but as this extends with age in the different species, it may
be
deceptive: in full grown birds, however, it is proper to observe,
VOL. IV.-K k

130
FLORIDA GALLINULE.
that both the American and Javan species differ from the common
kind in having it much wider, and differently shaped : in the
American it extends still further back, and is cut somewhat
square behind, whilst the Javan has it exactly rounded : in the
European it is much less extended, narrow, and comparatively
acute. In point of form, markings, proportions of the primaries,
and every other particular we could think of, we have been
unable to find any distinction, however trifling, between the three
species.
The genus Gallinule, restrained within its just limits,* is a
small group composed of but five or six species spread over all
the warm and temperate climates of the globe, and exceedingly
similar in form and colours : only one, that figured by Wilson,
assumes the brilliant vesture of its near relations the Porphyriones,
for which reason some authors have considered it as one of them.
Together with the Rails, the Coots, and some others it forms the
natural family Macrodactyli, (Rallidæ,) and is more aquatic in its
habits than many web-footed birds. Unlike the Coots, however,
the Gallinules dislike salt or brackish water, and confine them-
selves to fresh, and to rivers and streams especially, and they
are solitary, or at most the hen is seen with her family, like
the Gallinaceous birds of that sex. Being chiefly nocturnal, the
Gallinules hide carefully by day among reeds and other aquatic
plants; and even in a state of captivity they are so remarkable
for this habit, that some which I kept in a yard would take
advantage of every hiding-place to escape the eye of man.
only at the approach of night that they would willingly display
on the water their graceful evolutions, swimming in circles, and
often striking the water with their tails. From time to time
It was
* The greater part of authors, and among them Latham and Temminck, improperly
unite the Short-billed Rails with them.

FLORIDA GALLINULE.
131
they would rest awhile, placing their necks on the reeds or large
leaves of aquatic plants.
Not gifted by nature with the long wings of other Waders, the
Water Hens, being any thing but wanderers, obey both their
conformation and natural disposition by not undertaking long
periodical migrations, but are permanently resident in their native
countries, merely removing from one station to another within
certain provinces, and without roaming over the adjacent districts.
They run with rapidity; fly badly; always in motion, and fre-
quently carry their tail high, as represented in the plate, showing
the white plumage of the vent, especially when running on the
ground. They dive when frightened, but never after food. They
feed on small fishes, insects, and some vegetables, picking them
up as they swim. They seldom leave the pond or river where
they get their food and exercise, and are peculiarly attached to
such as are bordered with sedge and bushes; and standing waters,
green with vegetation, furnish them with abundant provision of
animalcula and pond-weeds. They lay twice or thrice in a
.
season, building their nest upon low trees, stumps and bogs, with
sticks and fibrous substances, rushes and weeds, or other coarse
materials in great abundance, invariably placing it by the water
side. The eggs are very long, of a greenish white, spotted with
rufous, and very pointed at the small end. There are nine or
ten in the first brood, the subsequent ones less and less numerous,
and the mother never leaves the nest without carefully covering
them with weeds. The chicks are no sooner hatched than they
swim, with instinctive dexterity, pursuing their parent, and imi-
tating all her motions. Thus are two or three broods reared in
à season, which while under her care she regularly after their
evening's sport leads back to the nest, where she uses every
exertion to make them warm, dry, and comfortable : but when
grown up and taught to provide for themselves, she turns them off.

132
FLORIDA GALLINULE.
a
The Florida Gallinule, or Water Hen, is fourteen inches long:
the bill one and a quarter to the corner of the mouth, and one
and an eighth to the posterior portion of the clypeus ; it is red,
as well as the clypeus, with the point greenish. This clypeus,
or bare red membrane spreading over the forehead, is more
than half an inch wide between the eyes, occupying a great
portion of the head, and being posteriorly cut somewhat square
or slightly cordate, the reverse of what is observed in the
European, which is rather pointed at this place. The whole
plumage from the very base is of a dark plumbeous hue, or sooty
black, the head and neck being a shade darker, and the lower
portion lighter and more tinged with bluish, so that they might
be styled cinereous. The mantle, that is, the whole back with
the wing-coverts, are highly tinged with olivaceous: the quills
are blackish, and the tail deep black, much more than in the other
allied species. The under tail-coverts are also deep black, with
the lateral pure white : the white also lines the wings externally
from all round the shoulder, almost, but not quite to the tip of
the outer quill, which is white on half the outer part of its narrow
web: a few white longitudinal spots may likewise be seen on the
under wing-coverts, and very large and conspicuous ones along
the flanks, and a few whitish streaks mixed with the plumbeous
on the belly. The wings are nearly seven inches long, and the
tail more than three. The feet are greenish, with a red ring like
a garter surrounding the tibia : the bare space on this is nearly
three-quarters, and the tarsus two inches and three-eighths: the
middle toe without the nail is more than two and a half, and the
nail itself three-quarters: the lateral toes measure more than two,
and the hind, one and an eighth. The sexes are precisely alike. .
The little that is known of the habits of this Gallinule does
not allow us to doubt that it has all those of its close analogues.
It is common in Florida and Jamaica on the streams and pools,
:

FLORIDA GALLINULE.
193
and extends over a great portion of the southern continent of
America: in the middle and northern United States it appears
to be quite accidental, for although a few well authenticated
instances are known of its having been seen and shot, even as far
as Albany in the state of New York, it has escaped the researches
of Wilson, as well as my own. It is by no means, therefore, a
common bird, and is not known as inhabiting arctic America,
ranging much less to the north, even as a straggler, than its
European analogue. Its voice is sonorous, resembling Ka, Ka, Ka!
The genus Gallinula has the bill shorter than the head, rather
stout, much higher than broad, tapering, compressed, straight,
convex at the point : both mandibles are furrowed, the upper
covers the margins of the lower, is inclined at the point, and
spreads at base into a naked membrane occupying the forehead.
This conformation, found also in the Fulicæ, to which Linné
united them, more judiciously than they have since been united
with the Rails, in which the front is feathered, is in my opinion
of considerable importance: the lower mandible is navicular: the
tongue is moderate, compressed, entire. The legs have been
described among the characters of the family, the anterior toes
being in all extremely long, flattened beneath, and bordered by a
narrow membrane, which circumstance alone distinguishes the
Gallinules from the Coots, that have a broad membrane cut into
festoons. The hind toe bears on the ground with several joints :
the nails are compressed, subarched, and rather acute. The
wings are convex, rounded, the first primary is shorter than the
fifth, the second and third being longest. The tail is so short as
hardly to appear from under the coverts. The females scarcely
differ from the males, but the young are different from the adults.
They moult annually.
The family Macrodactyli, or Rallidæ, when restricted to the five
genera of which we compose it, (one being Fulica, which nothing
VOL. IV.-L1

134
FLORIDA GALLINULE.
:
but blind caprice could separate from them,) is surprisingly
natural. The bill is short, or of moderate length in the long-
.
billed Rails, hard, thick at the base, straight, compressed, entire,
curved at the point, and sharp on the edges. The head is
small, the neck well proportioned; the body slender and much
compressed. The feet are moderate, rather robust, and without
exception four-toed: the naked space on the tibia is rather
limited; the tarsus not longer, generally shorter than the middle
toe, and scutellated: the toes are three before and one behind,
remarkably long, (the most obvious trait of the family,) slender,
quite divided, and edged with a decurrent membrane: the hind
toe is rather long, articulated almost on a level with the others,
resting on the ground a good part of its length : the nails are
slender, compressed, and acute. The wings rather short, wide,
somewhat rounded, concave and tuberculated; the first primary
not much shorter than the second, the third or fourth being the
longest. The tail is short, and of twelve feathers.
The female is smaller, but otherwise differs little from the
other sex: the young often differ from the adults: even those that
moult twice in a year do not change their colours in moulting.
All these birds have very similar habits: they are all solitary;
all fond of concealment and the immediate neighbourhood of
water: they move nimbly about on marsh plants, walking on the
softest mud, and even floating weeds, their characteristic long
toes serving admirably the purpose of a broad base. Their food
is small animals, seeds and vegetables. They are monogamous,
and breed several times in the year: they build their nests on, or
close to the water, some being even afloat, and therefore liable to
be carried away in floods. The number of eggs varies from five
to sixteen, and they are rounded : both sexes alternately sit upon
them. The young run about under the parental care, and provide
for themselves as soon as hatched; they are remarkably brisk

FLORIDA GALLINULE.
135
and lively, being born with a thick down of a beautiful velvet
black colour, whatever else it may finally become. Those that
migrate travel by night: owing to their short rounded wings,
composed of flaccid feathers, their flight is slow and limited, and
by no means rapid, so that they only have recourse to it in the
last extremity, when it is performed with the legs hanging down
in a way peculiar to themselves, and not stretched out as in the
other Waders, or drawn up to the belly as in the generality of
birds. It is in running that they excel, and with their long com-
pressed body they make their way so adroitly and swiftly amongst
the grass or weeds, that their pursuers are left far behind. They
also swim well, and even dive occasionally when there is necessity
for it. Their flight is however rapid when elevated, and fairly
started. . Their voice is strong but hoarse. Their flesh is well-
flavoured.

136
YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL.
RALLUS NOVEBORACENSIS.
Plate XXVII. Fig. 2.
Ib. Sp. comp.
Gallinula noveboracensis, LATH. Ind. II, p. 771, sp. 16.
Fulica noveboracensis, GMEL. Syst. I, p. 701, sp. 15.
Rallus ruficollis, VIEILL. Gal. Ois. II, p. 168, pl. 266. (A bad figure.)
Rallus noveboracensis, Nob. Cat. birds U. S. ID. Syn. sp. 273.
sp. Phil. 212.
Perdix hudsonica? Lath. Ind. II, p. 655, sp. 41.
Le Rále varié à gorge rousse, VIEILL. Nouv. Dict. XVIII, p. 556.
Yellow-breasted Gallinule, Lath. Syn. III, p. 262, sp. 15. Id. Gen. Hist. IX, p. 419,
sp. 30. PENN. Arct. Zool. II, sp. 410.
Hudsonian Quail? Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. p. 224. Id. Gen. Hist. VIII, p. 330, sp. 72.
American Museum, at New York.
The genus Rail, and that of the Gallinules, are so closely
related, that many authors have either confounded them together,
or by their various definitions and acceptations made them
to interfere with each other. Thus, for Latham, Temminck,
and others, the Short-billed Rails, among which ranks the present
species, are Gallinules, although they want that obvious character
upon which Linné founded his natural, though too much extended
group Fulica, and which we also, with Vieillot and others, adopt
as its best representative character, namely, the naked frontal
clypeus. The genus Rail is therefore very comprehensive and
numerous in species, which are spread over all the globe, and
may with propriety be divided into two subgenera or groups, the
first of which will contain the Long-billed species, under the
more restricted name of Rallus, containing the true Ralli of all

YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL.
137
-
a
authors, whilst the name Crex, or rather Porzana, or Ortygometra,
may be consecrated to the Short-billed Rails, improperly ranked
by authors with the Gallinules. I say rather Porzana or Ortygo-
metra, because the name Crex might be reserved for a secondary
group, instituted for the Corn-crake alone, (Rallus crex, L.) an
European bird, whose dry-land habits, so different from those of
its congeners, have, with apparent propriety, induced Bechstein
and others to elevate it to the rank of a full genus. Its land
habits are so peculiar, resembling more those of Gallinaceous
birds than of Waders, that notwithstanding a perfect similarity
of conformation, we do not hesitate to grant it the distinction
of a section for itself, especially as we are at last, after a
minute examination, able to assign it a character drawn from the
respective proportions of the toes and tarsus. This is, however,
the result of extraordinary pains. In the Land Crake of Europe, ,
(and probably in a few analogous foreign species) the middle toe
without the nail is shorter than the tarsus, whilst in the Water
Crakes it is longer. The hind toe is also shorter and rather
more elevated from the ground. All the other Rails and Crakes
are, though much less aquatic than the Gallinules and Coots,
always found in marshes, swamps, lakes, and their reedy margins,
or in their vicinity, and they even swim occasionally, though not
habitually. The Ortygometræ, or Crakes, are again subdivided by
the modern English school into two groups, which they elevate to
the dignity of genera, under the names of Crake and Craker, but
to which they assign no character. At least Dr. Leach, the
author of the genus Zapornia, did not, as far as I know, charac-
terize the group, nor is my good friend at present able to
point out the difference. However this may be, the only species
referred to it is the European Rallus pusillus, whilst its close
relative the porzana, and even the R. baillonii are left in Ortygo-
metra with the Rallus crex, which with great inconsistency the
VOL. IV.-M m

138
YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL.
same writers omit to distinguish separately, as has been done by
some Germans and Italians. It will not be useless here to bear
in mind that even the two chief divisions of this natural genus
pass so insensibly into each other as to make it impossible to
separate the connecting species, so that a great many Brasilian
Rails are arbitrarily placed in either subgenus, notwithstanding
that the extremes—which among the four North American species
may be exemplified by this, the Yellow-breasted namely, and
the Virginia Rail—are so widely different: and this furnishes
additional proof of the inexpediency of Latham's arrangement,
however it may have since been admired and imitated. Our
genus Rail, which we maintain to be natural, though closely
related to Gallinula, and especially Porphyrio, is easily known at
once from them all by the feathered front, common to all the
species.
The bill, varying in length, which affords the means of
distinguishing the two subgenera, is in all the Rails more or less
thick at base, generally straight, and always compressed: the
upper mandible is furrowed each side, somewhat vaulted and
curved at tip, its base extending upwards between the feathers of
the front: the nostrils, placed in the furrow, are medial, oblong or
longitudinal, open and pervious beneath, and covered at base by a
membrane (by which conformation they differ essentially from the
Porphyrios): the tongue is moderate, narrow, compressed, entire,
acute, fibrous at tip: the forehead is feathered: the body very
compressed and thin flanked. The naked space on the tibia is
small, the tarsi subequal to the middle toe, somewhat compressed,
so as to make up for the want of membrane in the analogy to the
Webfooted, that other less aquatic wading birds exhibit. We
are particular in remarking this, for the toes are entirely divided,
and the decurrent membrane extremely narrow. The hind toe
equals in length one phalanx of the middle, and is inserted a

YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL.
139
.
little higher than the others : the nails are short, compressed,
curved, and acute. The first primary is shorter than the fifth ;
the second, third, and fourth being the longest. The tail is very
short, the feathers flaccid, not appearing from beneath the coverts.
The female is generally, though not always, similar to the
male, an exception being met with in one of the small European
species. The young differ much from the adult. They moult
twice a year.
The bill of the subgenus Rallus (true Rails,) may be thus
described : longer than the head, slender, straight, subequal
throughout, compressed at base, cylindrical and obtuse at the
point; upper mandible furrowed beyond the base : nostrils more
basal, linear.
In the Crakes, of which the present is an example, the bill is
shorter than the head, robust, much higher than broad at base,
tapering, compressed and acute at the point: upper mandible
furrowed at base only, a little curved at tip: the lower is
navicular : the nostrils exactly medial, oblong. Apparently the
group is easy to define, but as if nature took delight in baffling
our attempts at exactness, the species are found to pass from one
form to another by nice and insensible degrees.
This Rail, like all others, inhabits swamps, marshes, and the
reedy margins of ditches and lakes. By a singular coincidence,
it was in the market of New York that, in the beginning of
February, 1826, I first met with this pretty species, which appears
to have escaped the industrious research of Wilson, although
found equally in Pennsylvania in winter, where it is, however,
very rare.
We can hardly believe it is to be found in the south
or south-west, notwithstanding we have been credibly informed of
the circumstance. But we have no hesitation in declaring it an
arctic bird, for we do not doubt that it is the Hudsonian Quail of
Latham, thus miscalled by superficial observers on account of its

140
YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL.
general resemblance in plumage and size to the true Quail of
Europe ; besides which we have received it ourselves from the
extreme northern limits of the American continent, and have
information of its inhabiting near the most north-western lakes,
such as the Athabasca.
The Crakes, as well as the true Rails, lead a solitary life: they
are timid and shy, screening themselves from observation amidst
the tall reeds, so as hardly ever to be seen except when surprised,
which does not very often happen, and forced for a moment to
have recourse to their short wings. But they prefer to evade
dangers by their rapid movements among the aquatic herbage,
which the compressed form of their body enables them to execute
with the greatest facility, however entangled the stalks, or narrow
the interstices. They also swim and dive tolerably well, when
compelled to take the water, hiding all but the tip of the bill, but
are by no means so essentially aquatic as the Gallinules, or their
close relatives the Porphyriones. They also breed in marshes,
among weeds and thickets, placing the nest near the water's edge,
or, fastening it to the reeds, they build a floating habitation. In
most of the species, (how it is in the present we do not know,)
the eggs are about eight, generally seven or nine in number, their
colour being always of a green more or less tinged with olive,
and very oval in shape. Different in this from the Gallinules,
they prefer stagnant to clear waters, and always keep where the
grass is high, and particularly avoid sand and exposed shores.
Notwithstanding their apparently limited powers of flight, and a
conformation similar to that of the sedentary and unenterprising
Gallinules, they periodically undertake great journies. They
walk with agility and ease, raising their head, elevating their
feet, and jerking up their tail : they alight sometimes on low
branches, never on trees, except to escape a very close chase. Of
a nocturnal disposition, they hide closely by day, seeking their

YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL.
141
ood in the morning and evening, or by moonlight, when they
emerge from their retreats. Their food is both animal and
vegetable; they search eagerly after worms and snails, and are no
less fond of certain leaves, and the seeds of marsh plants.
The following description is taken from a fine male, procured,
as we have mentioned, in the neighbourhood of New York in the
winter.
Length hardly six inches, extent about ten : bill six-eighths of
an inch long, exceedingly compressed, of a greenish-dusky, at
base beneath on the margins of both mandibles, and the ridge
near the front, dull yellowish-orange; irides dark drab: feet
dirty flesh-colour; tarsus one inch; middle toe an inch and
one-eighth long. Base of the whole plumage slate. Head above
chocolate-brown, the feathers being slightly skirted with cinna-
mon-ferruginous, and on the hind part minutely dotted at tip
with white; over each eye a broad stripe of cinnamon-ferruginous,
a chocolate spot between the bill and eye inconspicuously conti-
nued beyond it, the chocolate-brown colour descends from the
nucha to the back on the upper part of the neck in a broad stripe,
the feathers of which are widely skirted with cinnamon-ferruginous,
and crossed by two narrow white bands, one of which is terminal;
those nearer to the neck, and the feathers of the rump having
only the terminal band; sides of the neck and whole under
surface yellowish-ferruginous, each feather being tipped with
darker ferruginous, which gives a waved appearance to those
parts, the waves being more intense on the lateral parts : throat
and belly whitish, but passing insensibly into the general colour ;
flanks and thighs darker, with the two white transverse lines, as
on the back. Wings when closed reaching to the tip of the tail ;
upper wing-coverts dark slate broadly margined with olive-ferru-
ginous, and each with two white narrow spots representing the
usual lines; margin and spots becoming by degrees inconspicuous
a
VOL. IV. -Nn

142
YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL.
towards the outer coverts; inferior wing-coverts, and axillary
feathers white; quill-feathers plain grayish, considerably lighter
beneath, and with the shafts above darker; last of the primaries
and first of the secondaries with two or three white dots very
irregularly disposed, five or six nearest to the body white on a
great part at tip, the last becoming, however, more generally
grayish, and only mottled with white; tertials, or rather scapulars,
blackish, very widely bordered each side with different shades of
yellowish-ferruginous, of which the palest is outside, and crossed
by the two narrow white lines, having besides a rudiment of a
third, equidistant; these scapulars form a whole with the wing-
coverts and the feathers of the back, being of the same colour,
only somewhat more brilliant. Tail very short, feathers blackish,
each side ferruginous, with the two white lines, but interrupted,
and neither at the tip; the tail is altogether concealed in its upper
and lower coverts; the upper are of the same colour, but have
only a terminal white band, whilst the inferior are black at base,
and with a broad and vividly ferruginous tip.
This is the most brilliant specimen I have seen, and I must
declare that it had all the appearance of being adult. Others
did not, however, differ in anything except in having the colours
duller and less decided : nor did I notice any difference between
the sexes, except a little in size, the female being smaller.
According to Vieillot, however, the plumage I have so minutely
described could have been only that of the young bird : he states
the adult male to be different in colour both from the adult female
and the young, but as the differences appear to consist more in the
language of his imperfect descriptions than in anything else, we
shall bestow no further notice upon them.
.
END OF VOL. IV.

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