Plate CCCXXXV. Adult in summer and winter.
Tail of twelve feathers; bill dark olive; feet light yellowish-olive. In summer, the upper parts brownish-black, variegated with light brownish-red, the feathers being margined and the scapulars obliquely barred with that colour; hind part of back, upper tail-coverts, and tail-feathers light buff or white, barred with black, the bars on the tail seven or eight, and its tip white; wing-coverts and secondaries greyish-brown, margined with greyish-white; secondary coverts tipped with white, the quills tipped and obliquely banded with the same; alula, primary coverts, and quills brownish-black, the shaft of the first quill white; from the base of the bill to the eye, and surrounding it, a dull reddish-white band; loral space dusky; all the lower parts dull orange-red, with streaks and spots of black, more numerous along the sides and on the tail-coverts. In winter, the upper parts of a nearly uniform brownish-grey, the hind part of the back and tail barred as in summer, head and neck all round ash-grey, streaked with dusky, the rest of the lower parts greyish-white, the sides barred with dusky.
Adult, 101/4, 181/2.
Passes in immense numbers from Texas eastward and northward to the highest latitudes, where it breeds, and returns in autumn. Occasionally seen in groups through the interior. Columbia River.
Red-breasted Snipe, Scolopax noveboracensis, Wils. Amer. Orn. v. vii. p. 48.
Scolopax grisea, Bonap. Syn. p. 330.
Scolopax noveboracensis, New York Godwit, Swains. & Rich. F. Bor. Amer. v. ii. p. 398.
Brown or Red-breasted Snipe, Nutt. Man. v. ii. p. 181.
Red-breasted Snipe, Scolopax noveboracensis, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. iv. p. 285.
GENUS VII. MICROPTERA, Nutt. BOGSUCKER.
Bill double the length of the head, straight, slender, tapering, subtrigonal, and deeper than broad at the base, slightly depressed towards the end; upper mandible with the ridge narrow, towards the end flattened, the sides with a narrow groove extending to near the tip, the tip blunt, knob-like, and longer than that of the lower. Head rather large, oblong; eyes large, and placed high; neck short; body full. Feet rather short; tibia feathered to the joint; tarsus rather short, compressed, scutellate; first toe very small, the third much longer than the tarsus. Claws very small, arched, acute. Wings short, rounded, the fourth and fifth quills longest, the first three extraordinarily attenuated. Tail very short, cuneate, of twelve feathers.
354. 1. Microptera Americana, Aud. Common Bogsucker.—American Woodcock.
Plate CCLXVIII. Male, Female, and Young.
Bill and feet flesh-coloured; forehead yellowish-grey, with a few dark mottlings in the centre; on the upper part of the head two broad blackish-brown transverse bands, and on the occiput two narrower, separated by bands of light red; a brownish-black loral band, and a narrow irregular line of the same across the cheek, and continued to the occiput; upper parts variegated with brownish-black, light yellowish-red, and ash-grey; inner wing-coverts and secondary quills similarly barred, the outer pale greyish-red, faintly barred with dusky; quills brown, tipped with dull grey, secondaries spotted on the outer web with dull red; upper tail-coverts barred; tail-feathers brownish-black, their tips grey, their outer edges mottled with reddish; sides of the neck grey, tinged with red; lower part in general light red, tinged with grey on the breast, on the sides and lower wing-coverts deeper; lower tail-coverts with a central dusky line, the tip white. Young with a longitudinal black band on the head.