of nearly one hundred specimens of each sex, killed between
the 20th August and the 27th April: —
Males.—Length, 975 to 10'Q ; expanse, 15*5 to 17-4 ; wing,
495 to 5'42 ; tail from vent, 2x3 to 2-57 ; tarsus, 1*19 to 1*27 ;
bill from gape, 2-12 to 2-5 ; bill at front, 22 to 26 ; weight,
3*3 ozs. to 475 ozs. Average, 3"91 ozs.
Females.—Length, i c o to 1 1 * 1 7 ; expanse, iG'i to i8'25 ;
wing, 5'0 to 5-58 ; tail from vent, 2-o to 2^67 ; tarsus, 1*2 to
1*35 ; bill from gape, 2*38 to 2'62 ; bill at front, 245 to 27 ;
weight, 375 ozs. to 5*1 ozs. Average, 4-2 ozs. Average of
both sexes, 4-o6 ozs.
The legs and feet arc greenish or greenish leaden, but especially
late in the spring these parts exhibit, in some birds, a distinct
olive yellow tinge; the irides are deep brown; the bill
generally has the gape, the extreme base and margins of the
upper mandible greenish, or olive, but sometimes some or all of
these arc unicolorous with the rest of the basal four-sevenths of
the upper mandible, which arc usually pale horny brown ; on
the other hand even these at times show a greenish tinge ; the
terminal three-sevenths of the bill arc deep brown, blackish horny
towards the tip, and paling towards the opposite direction.
THE PLATE is not good. I do not mean to assert that no
sthamra was ever like the plate, because the species is so
extremely variable that this would be rash ; but it does not at all
accurately represent an average specimen. If the white margins
of the scapulars had been given a fawny tinge, if the
breast had been made browner, and the markings continued over
it, and if the second face band, which is about a quarter of an
inch below the eye had been shown instead of being absolutely
ignored, the picture of the standing bird would have been fair.
As for the picture of the bird flying away, which has the entire
lower parts from chin to vent white, and the entire lower back
and rump unmarked grey, it is purely an effort of the artist's
imagination. In every specimen of this species that I have
ever seen, the front of the neck and the upper breast at least
have been pale brown or fawny, mottled, streaked or barred with
dark brown. In every specimen the lower back is regularly
bared, in some greyish white and blackish brown, in others fawn
colour and brown, &c. ; but it is invariably barred, never uniform.
Again, the rump and upper tail-coverts are never grey, but
always a sort of olivaceous or rufescent brown, often well
barrred, always showing traces of this.
The species is an excessively variable one. I have specimens
now before me with the entire lower breast, abdomen,
and vent pure white and unmarked. I have others with
the whole of these parts barred, almost as strongly and
regularly as in nemoricola. There are some in which the
front of the throat and upper breast are fawn coloured, blurred
with numerous ill-defined spots and streaks of dark
brown, and others in which the upper breast is strongly and
distinctly, though rather irregularly, barred. Many birds have
less barring even on the flank than is shown in the plate;
in others it is far more profuse, narrower, and closer set.
Most specimens have two dark streaks down the throat, one
starting from either base of the lower mandible, which is
about in the same line as the front of the eye; sometimes
these are only indicated and occasionally entirely wanting.
The upper surfaces differ widely—some are altogether brighter,
the black more intense, the markings on the scapulars are
more intense rusty, their pale margins a brighter and richer
buff. In some few birds, almost exclusively Andaman specimens,
the back and wing markings are almost as white as
in the plate ; but, as a rule, they vary from pale fawny white
to rufous buff.
The plate of the wing-lining and tail of this species {vide
plate, ante, facing page 332,) is on the whole very fair; but as a
rule the lower tail-coverts, &c, are a paler and more fawny
buff than in the specimen figured.
I cannot say that Mr. Ncale's plates will help any one
materially in distinguishing between the Pintail and Fantail, but
still there ought to be no difficulty in discriminating them.
In the first place there is the difference in the shape of the
bill {vide ante, p. 346) by which you can distinguish the two, even
when served up dressed for dinner.
Then there is the difference in the barring of the under
surface of the wing. In the Pintail the axillaries and the entire
wing-lining, except the lower greater coverts, are invariably
strongly and distinctly barred with blackish brown. This, according
to my experience, is never the case in the Common Snipe.
In many specimens of this latter there is no barring at all,
properly speaking, on the lower surface of the wing; but even
where the axillaries and some of the coverts are strongly barred,
the median secondaty lower coverts are always unbarred, forming
a white unbarred patch in the centre of the upper portion of the
lower surface of the closed wing.
Then there is the difference in the tail feathers. These, in the
Common Snipe, are fourteen, occasionally sixteen, very rarely
twelve in number—all ordinary shaped and soft. In the Pintail
there are only ten such feathers, but on either side of these
ten, are from five to nine, very narrow, rather rigid, feathers,
making up a total of from twenty to twenty-eight feathers. There
are not always the same number of these on each side. I have
often found, in apparently uninjured tails, one more on one
side than another. These narrow feathers are generally completely
hidden by the lower tail-coverts ; occasionally I have
found them entirely wanting, and I have repeatedly seen them