Bill, feet, and claws black. Iris brown. Head and two upper thirds of the neck glossy black. A large subtriangular patch of white on each side of the head and neck. The general colour of the upper parts is brownish-grey, the feathers margined with paler; of the lower parts pale greyish-brown, margined with yellowish-grey; the abdomen and lower tail-coverts white; the hind part of the back brownish-black. The primary quills and tail-feathers are deep brown.
Length to end of tail 25 inches, extent of wings 50; wing from flexure 16 3/4; tail 5 3/4; bill along the back 1 1/2, along the edge of lower mandible 1 1/2; tarsus 2 1/2; middle toe 2, its claw 4/12. Weight 4 1/2 lb.
In the Fauna Boreali-Americana, the tail-feathers are stated to be fourteen. In my specimen they are sixteen, and it is probable that the full number is eighteen, as the two middle ones seem to be wanting.
SCHINZ’S SANDPIPER.
Tringa Schinzii, Brehm.
PLATE CCLXXVIII. Male and Female.
Although I have met with this species at different times in Kentucky, and along our extensive shores, from the Floridas to Maine, as well as on the coast of Labrador, I never found it breeding. Indeed, I have not met with it in the United States excepting in the latter part of autumn and in winter. Those procured in Labrador were shot in the beginning of August, and were all young birds, apparently about to take their departure. My drawing of the two individuals represented in the plate was made at St Augustine in East Florida, where I procured them on the 2d December 1831. I have always found these birds gentle and less shy than any other species of the genus. They fly at a considerable height with rapidity, deviating alternately to either side, and plunge toward the ground in a manner somewhat resembling that of the Solitary Sandpiper. When accidentally surprised, they start with a repeated weet, less sonorous than that of the bird just mentioned. They search for food along the margins of pools, creeks and rivers, or by the edges of sand-bars, and mix with other species.
Tringa Schinzii, Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of the United States, p. 249.—Amer. Ornith. vol. iv. p. 69. pl. 24. fig. 2. Winter.—Swains. and Richards. Fauna Bor. Amer. part ii. p. 384.
Schinz’s Sandpiper, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 109.
Adult Male in winter. Plate CCLXXVIII. Fig. 1.
Bill about the length of the head, slender, subcylindrical, straight, compressed at the base, the point slightly enlarged and rather obtuse. Upper mandible with the dorsal line straight, excepting at the tip, the ridge narrow and convex, broader and flattened towards the end, the sides sloping, the edges rather obtuse. Nasal groove extending to near the tip; nostrils basal, linear, pervious. Lower mandible with the angle long and extremely narrow, the dorsal line straight, the sides sloping outwards, the tip a little broader than that of the upper.