or in wisps, each one, as it alighted, uttering its characteristic
cry. The birds remained all night, but dispersed as soon as the
morning gun was fired from the fort at 5 A.M., when it was still
cmitc dark. Their other nightly resort was a small bit of
ground, also on the hill, that had been recently cleared of
brushwood to make a garden. This place, situated at the foot
of a small rise, was rather marshy. All the Snipe in the
neighbourhood flocked to these two places at night, the former,
where I should say several hundred Snipe congregated every
evening, being the most frequented. But although I frequently
went after them, yet, on the whole, I was not successful, owing
to the difficulty of seeing the birds well enough to make sure
of them, when flushed or even when first alighting. I found
that the only plan was to go some little way down the slope
of the hill and take my chance of a bird or birds passing
immediately over head. No doubt when the birds first began
to arrive there was generally light enough to see them, though
indistinctly ; but within a quarter of an hour (Klang is not a
hundred miles from the equator) it becomes too dark to see to
shoot."
OF THE nidificatlon of the Pintail Snipe absolutely nothing
certain is known, though Hodgson records that in females, obtained
by him on the 4th of May, the eggs were still small. No
doubt some few birds do remain all the year in the Andamans,
the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and other hilly tracts; but
whether birds thus remaining breed there, is as yet uncertain.
Possibly this bird docs not breed until the second year, and these
birds and the late stayers generally may be birds of the year.
Even, however, if some do breed here, the great majority doubtless
breed elsewhere, and it has been supposed that they breed
in South-Eastcrn Siberia; but Dybowski, who gives a full
account of the breeding of 67. megala (heterocerca, Cab., apitd
Cabanis, kodie*) in Darasun, leads us to infer that this species
breeds further north, as he says, " not uncommon on passage,
arrives in the spring early in May, remains in autumn till
October."
* Or at any rate of J F. O., 1873, 104. I personally cannot help suspecting that
the specimen originally described as heterocerca (J. F. O.. 1870, 235) was merely
itheunia, and that Cabanis' heteroearca, from Luzon (J. F. O.. 1S72, 317) was megala.
According to the passage fust referred to, however, heterocerca is affirmed by Cabanis
to be equivalent to the species we English now call megala.
As to megala, Cabanis believes that Swinhoe really first applied this name to
specimens ol sohtaria (a bird Swinhoe never obtained, unless a bird he sent to Blyth,
and which was lost, belonged to this species), and that the name megala was later
wrongly transferred to his heterocerca. This hypothesis is absolutely untenable since
Swinhoe had no specimens of solitaria, to which to apply the name, until several
years later when he got one or more (he sent me one of each) from Pekin and Japan,
and his name megala was applied to the Common Great Snipe of China, of which he
had numbers of specimens, and which is unquestionably the bird we now call megala.
But 1 have discussed this question more fully in the out-coming Novcnvher 1880
number of Stray Feathers, to which I must refer any chance reader who may care
to investigate further this barren question ol nomenclature.
It is true that Swinhoe, writing {lbis% 1863,415) on Formosan
Ornithology remarked, that " a few stay to breed in our
marshes." But later, in his revised list of the Birds of China
(P. Z. S.j 1871, 497) he seems to have changed his opinion and
says, " probably goes north to breed." And we gather from Pere
David that even at Pekin, in Northern China, it only occurs on
passage.
If, as I believe, heterocerca of Cabanis, apud Prjevalski, (which
he keeps separate from megala of Swinhoe) is really slkenura,
then he gives us the following in regard to its breeding :—
" It breeds in tolerable numbers on the Ussuri, but is still
more plentiful during migration, about the 10th of April and
in the end of August.
" In the latter half of April the birds choose their nesting
localities in the thinly overgrown marshes, and their peculiar
courting commences. Rising into the air, similar to our 67.
scotopachta, and describing large circles above the spot where
the female is sitting, it suddenly dashes downwards with great
noise (which is most likely produced by the tail-feathers, like
that made by our species, and somewhat resembles the noise of
a broken rocket). As the bird approaches the ground the
noise increases, until it has got within a hundred yards, when
it suddenly stops the sound and quietly flies on, uttering a
note something like " title, tine, tiric." Courtship lasts until
the middle of June, and is mostly heard or seen in the mornings
and evenings, but occasionally in the day time, and even at
night in clear weather." He adds that " it was not seen in the
Hoang-ho Valley where megala breeds numerously."
Middendorff never seems to have met with this species, and
the 67. sthenura, Temminck, of Raddc, is clearly not our bird,
but probably megala.
Now countless myriads of this species visit this Empire (and
the other countries already mentioned when describing its
range) during the winter. If only half of these bred in
Southern or South-Eastern Siberia, one would think that every
collector, Radde, Middendorff, Schrenk, Dybowski, would have
found them breeding; and unless we suppose that, as a rule, this
species has not been discriminated from the Fantail, we must
admit that its breeding head-quarters are still somewhat of a
mystery.
THE FEMALES in this species average larger and heavier than
the males ; but the dimensions and weights of both sexes are
very variable, according doubtless to age, and the weights vary
also materially according to season ; birds shot in the latter part
of March and in April, running, as a body, heavier than those
shot from October to the end of January.
The following is the resume1 of the dimensions and weights