334 THE EASTERN SOLITARY SNIPE.
to this latter. So too in Western Turkestan, Sevcrtzoff affirms
that it is hyemalis that occurs, and that this is a good species.
I cannot discover where any description of this supposed species
has been published. I doubt the Northern Chinese, and
South-Eastern Siberian species being distinct, and I believe
that the Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Siberian, Tibetan, Eastern
and Western Turkestan birds are all either solitaria or
hyemalis, and I incline to the former alternative; firstly, because,
years ago, I examined Pekinese and Japanese specimens (one of
each) sent to me by Mr. Swinhoe, which, though differing
slightly in tints and proportions from the Himalayan specimens
I then had, seemed to me to be specifically identical ; secondly,
because Stoliczka obtained a pair of veritable solitaria, on the
ist of November at Sanju, on the other side of the Himalayas,
in the south of Eastern Turkestan, and Major Biddulph procured
it between Sarhad and Punja in Wakhan, and it is
extremely unlikely that the Western Turkestan birds should
be different from these ; and, thirdly, because solitaria Is a species
that varies very* considerably in colour, size, and markings, as
well as in number of tail feathers ; and Mr. Bogandoff, on whose
authority, apparently, the distinctness of hyemalis rests, and who
is said to have compared Siberian with Indian specimens, cannot
possibly be in a position, (they have only three specimens, I think,
at Leyden) to know the extent to which solitaria does vary.
Of course this is merely argument. As a fact hyemalis may
prove to be a good species, but for the present my readers may,
I think, assume that it is probably solitaria that extends to all
the countries above enumerated.
ALTHOUGH THE Eastern Solitary Snipe may be met with at
great elevations,—I have myself seen it as high as 14,000 feet,
and I believe considerably higher ; Henderson shot one on the
Chagra Stream, above the Pangong (elevation 15,000 feet) as late
as the 8th of October; and Major Biddulph writes that several
were shot by his party in the narrow valley, (elevation 13,500
feet), leading from Tanksi to this same lake,—still even in June
I have found them as low as 9,000 feet, and the great majority
of the birds descend early, so that some are to be found in all
the low valleys by the first week in October, and in early
seasons by the middle of September. I have no record of any
being shot in the Dun or other similar submontane tracts
before the middle of November ; but these are such frightfully
feverish localities in the autumn, that no one shoots there before
that time, and from Mr. Guthrie's experience at Benares, I dare
say some begin to arrive in all these places much about the
same time as they appear in the lower Himalayan valleys, well
inside the hills.
They do not seem to care much for cover. I have constantly
seen them along the margins of little streams, in bare rocky
THE EASTERN SOLITARY SNIPE. 335
ravines and valleys, where there were only small corners and
nooks of turf and mossy swamp, and no cover a foot high.
I have no doubt found them in small open swamps in the
middle of jungle, but they stick to the grass and low rushes,
and I never myself observed them in scrub or ringal jungle. I
have known Wood-Snipe and the Eastern Solitary Snipe flushed
within a short distance of each other; but, as a rule, the Wood-
Snipe is to be seen only in tiny swamps or morasses, partly or
wholly surrounded by thick cover—the Solitary Snipe in little
swampy places on open grassy hill sides, or along the margins
of rocky-bedded, bare-banked streams.
The Solitary Snipe has a much higher range in summer, and
does not go nearly so far south in winter. In the Himalayas
at all seasons it is at least ten times as numerous as the Wood-
Snipe. It is just as commonly met with in two's and three's
as singly whereas (in the hills at any rate) the Wood-Snipe
is always solitary.
The flight of the Wood-Snipe, and the shape of its bill, are
"wood-cocky," of the Solitary Snipe, both arc "snipey."
The latter rises, flies, twists, and pitches precisely like a
Pintail Snipe, but is somewhat less rapid and agile in all its
movements than this, and á fortiori than the Common Snipe.
The Wood-Snipe, so far as my experience goes, rises invariably
silently; the Solitary Snipe goes off with a loud "pwich"—a
harsh screeching imitation of the note of the Common Snipe.
They feed, to judge from those that I have examined, chiefly
on small insects and tiny grubs. I have found a mass of minute
black coleóptera in the stomachs of two or three ; of one I
find noted " minute shells." There is always a quantity of
gravel or coarse sand in the gizzard.
They are excellent eating, but not I think quite equal to any
of the other Snipes, the best of which are certainly the Jacks.
There is not much on these latter, but what there is, is delicious.
THE BREEDING season commences in May, when the
males are to be often heard and seen in the higher portions
of the hills soaring to a considerable height, repeatedly
uttering a loud, sharp, jerky call, and then descending rapidly
with quivering wings and outspread tail, producing a harsh buzzing
sound something like, but shriller and louder than, that
produced by the Common Snipe, and this though they do not
descend as rapidly as this latter.
The nest, such as it is, is usually placed on grass or moss,
close to some stream, often more or less overhung by some
tuft of grass or rushes. It consists at most of a few dead
rushes or scraps of dry moss or grass, surrounding and at times
lining a little depression in the moss, turf or ground. In one
case I was told that there was no nest at all, the eggs being