BROAD-BILLED TRINGA.

Tringa platyrhyncha, Temm.

Le Bécasseau platyrhinque.

Tue specific name of platyrhyncha is given to this species in order to indicate the breadth and flatness of the
beak. Like many others of its genus, it has been confounded with various species, and it is but recently that
it has been extricated from the confusion in which it was involved.

The high northern regions appear to be its true habitat, whence it passes annually southwards along the
rivers of the eastern portion of the Continent; it is said also to be common on the borders of the lakes of
Switzerland, particularly in spring. It is a species of some rarity, and its history is but imperfectly under-
stood. Like most of the Zringe, it is subject to a change of plumage in summer and winter. Our Plate
represents it in its autumnal livery, when the red markings of the upper surface have disappeared, in conse-
quence of the edges of the feathers wearing away, while at the same time the rufous tint which covers the
eye-streak and the face has given place to a dirty white.

Of its habits, manners, and nidification we have been unable to gain any information.

The sexes are alike in the colouring of their plumage : that of the individual we have copied, and which we
believe to be an adult in its autumnal plumage, is as follows :

Sides of the face and neck white dotted with brown; an obscure stripe of brown from the base of the beak
to the eye; top of the head and whole of the upper surface black, each feather being more or less edged
with tawny white ; throat and chest white marked with red and brown; abdomen white; primaries dark
brown ; the outer tail-feathers greyish brown ; feet dark olive brown.

The figure is of the natural size.