[Three Hundred Animals Contents]
RECEIVED his name from the colour of his legs which are of a crimson red. In size he may be reckoned between the lap-wing and the snipe, and is sometimes called Pool Snipe. The head and back are of a dusky ash colour, spotted with black, the throat party-coloured black and white, the black being drawn down along the feathers. The breast whiter, with fewer spots. He delights in fen countries, in wet and marshy grounds, where he breeds and rears his young. The female lays four whitish eggs, with olive-coloured dashes, and marked with irregular spots of black. We must observe here that this bird has often been mistaken for others. The fact is, (and this might lead us into a dissertation too extensive for the bounds of our book) that several birds changing their plumage and increasing or diminishing their size according to their age, the season of the year, and the climate they live in, they put all nomenclators at defiance and confound all classifications.
