TOTANUS GRISEOPYGIUS, Gow.
Grey-rumped Sandpiper.

Totanus griseopygius, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., February 22, 1848.
Mil-woo-ing-a-ninig-e, Aborigines of Port Essington.

 

Never having seen this Sandpiper in any collection but my own, nor a description of it in any of the
ornithological works I have examined, I have deemed it necessary to give it a specific appellation, and have
selected that of g7iseopygius from the uniform grey colouring of the rump and upper tail-coverts, a feature
very uncommon in this tribe of birds. All the specimens I possess were killed near the harbour of Port
Essington, where it frequents the sandy beaches and rocks just above high-water mark ; the salt-water lakes
and swamps near the settlement also afford it a natural asylum, and there, at some seasons of the year, it
may be seen in vast flocks in company with Stints and Plovers.

The stomach is very muscular, and the food consists of aquatic insects and their larvae and small-shelled
mollusks.

But little difference exists in the colouring of the sexes.

The head, all the upper surface, rump and tail are greyish brown; primaries dark brown; line over the
eye and all the under surface white, the neck, breast and flanks strongly freckled with brown ; irides
reddish brown ; bill blackish brown, except the base of the under mandible, which is scarlet ; legs and feet
hyacinth-red.

In winter the upper surface is of a much lighter hue, and the under surface is of a greyish white and
destitute of the freckles of brown.

The figures are of the natural size.