Fig. 60.–Woodcock. Scolopax rusticula. × 2⁄7.
The genus Gallinago differs from the above in having longitudinal stripes on the head. G. caelestis, the Common or Full Snipe,[[190]] breeds in Northern and Central Europe and Asia, and even in North Italy; it is recorded from Greenland and the Bermudas, and migrates to the Atlantic Islands, the Gambia, the Upper Nile, and the Indian Region. Its brown, black, and buff plumage, with three buff streaks on the head, is well-known, while there are normally fourteen rectrices. G. sabinii is merely a dark form. As regards its autumnal influx and food the Snipe resembles the Woodcock, but the cry of "scape-scape" and twisting flight on rising, remain to be mentioned, while the alternate zig-zag rise and fall of the bird when circling in the air near its nest, with the curious drumming or bleating noise produced at each descent must not be omitted. The method of production of this sound is still uncertain, but is either due to the vibration of the wings, or more probably to that of the webs of the outer rectrices. The slight nest is formed in a tuft of herbage in some marshy place, the four pointed eggs being olive, with spots and oblique blotches of brown. Snipe occasionally perch on trees or squat upon the ground until touched. The very similar G. delicata (wilsoni), breeding northwards from the northern United States, and migrating to northern South America, has usually sixteen rectrices, as have the six following species. G. major, the Double or Solitary Snipe, nests as far south in Europe as Holland and Poland, and reaches the Yenesei; it is known from the Tian-Shan Mountains, Turkestan, and Persia, and winters even in Natal and Damara-Land, visiting Britain annually on passage. It rises silently and heavily when flushed, is to some extent nocturnal, and drums when on the ground. The three outer tail-feathers are chiefly white.[[191]] G. frenata, ranging from Argentina and Tarapacá to Venezuela and Guiana; G. nobilis of Colombia and Ecuador, G. paraguaiae, reaching from Amazonia and Bolivia to the Falklands, G. macrodactyla (bernieri) of Madagascar, and G. aequatorialis (nigripennis), of the Ethiopian Region generally, conclude this section of the genus. G. australis is similar to our Snipe, but larger; it breeds in Japan, and migrates through Formosa to Australia; G. nemoricola, the Wood-Snipe of the hills of India and Burma, has the lower parts distinctly barred; G. solitaria, breeding at considerable elevations from Turkestan to Assam and Japan, and wintering in those countries and China, exhibits distinct white streaks above. In the three last-named species the rectrices number about eighteen, in the next six they may be as few as fourteen. South America furnishes five forms somewhat like Woodcocks in their habits and eggs, namely, G. gigantea of Brazil and Paraguay, the largest of the Snipes; G. undulata of Guiana; G. jamesoni, ranging from Colombia to Bolivia; G. imperialis of the former country; and G. stricklandi of Chili and Patagonia. All these recall the Common Snipe by their coloration, as does the small short-winged G. aucklandica, which, with its different races, occupies the Auckland, Snares, Chatham, and Antipodes Islands, and has visited New Zealand. G. stenura, the Pin-tailed Snipe, with twenty-six rectrices, the eight outer of which on each side are stiff and attenuated, breeds from the Yenesei to the Pacific, and winters in the Indian Region; G. megala, with twelve of its twenty tail-feathers narrowed, inhabits East Siberia and passes through Japan to China, the Philippines, Borneo, and the Moluccas in winter. G. (Limnocryptes) gallinula, the Jack Snipe, found in Britain from autumn to spring, breeds from Scandinavia to Siberia, and migrates to North Africa, the Indian Region, and Japan. The upper parts show a greenish and purple gloss, while it has only twelve rectrices. Like G. major, it frequents drier spots than the Common Snipe, and rises without a sound in the shooting season, the flight being butterfly-like; the habits in summer are similar to those of the last-named species, and the eggs even larger for its size.
Of the so-called Painted Snipes the female of Rhynchaea or Rostratula capensis has a brown head with chestnut cheeks and collar, a brownish-green back with blackish freckling, scattered golden-buff ocelli and streaks on the upper parts, a black fore-neck, a white under surface and ring round the eye. The male is duller, without the chestnut tints. This species inhabits the whole Ethiopian and most of the Indian Region, as well as Egypt, Arabia, and Japan; the larger R. australis, with only a chestnut patch on the nape, occupies Australia. R. semicollaris of Chili and Patagonia, which visits Peru and Brazil, shews no chestnut collar, but has black upper wing-coverts with round white spots; the sexes being alike. In mature females of the Old World forms the trachea extends in a loop or loops over the furcula, or even over the pectoral muscles.[[192]] The habits of these birds are Snipe-like, but the flight is slower, and the hen's note purring; the whitish eggs with plentiful black spots are somewhat Plover-like, while R. semicollaris apparently lays only two. The Indian species is said to hiss at intruders, with its wings and tail expanded into a disc.
The short-winged Phegornis mitchelli, which lacks a hallux, is brown above, and white with very close dusky bars below; the head is black, save for a white band which surrounds the occiput; while a neck-collar is formed by a fine orange patch behind and a white area in front. It inhabits the Andes from Peru to Chili.
Fam. II. Chionididae.–This group–with Dromas–possibly connects the Charadriidae and the Laridae. The peculiar bill and short, entirely reticulated metatarsus have already been mentioned (pp. [268]-[269]), while both sexes are pure white, the downy young being grey. Chionis alba, the "Kelp Pigeon" of the Falklands, which inhabits the Straits of Magellan, New Year Island, South Georgia and Louis-Philippe Land, and has once been shot in Ireland, has the bill pinkish or yellowish with a black tip and flat sheath; the bare face is covered with whitish papillae, and the feet are bluish. C. minor, of Kerguelen Land, Prince Edward and Marion Islands, and the Crozets, has the sheath protuberant, the bill and facial caruncle black, and the feet pinkish. There is said to be a blunt black carpal spur, less prominent in the female. Both species are often found at sea, flying strongly, or sailing with outspread wings; but on land their appearance, gait, and manner of courting are curiously like those of Pigeons. The note is a gentle chuckle; the food consists of mussels–which they break with ease–crustaceans, sea-weed, and even eggs of other birds; their own eggs, two or rarely three in number, are of the Oyster-catcher type, but commonly redder in the markings, so that they recall those of the Razor-bill or Tropic-bird. When the flocks separate into pairs for breeding, they are tame and inquisitive, while they fashion a nest of dried plant-stems in hollows among rocks, or occasionally in Petrels' burrows.
Fam. III. Glareolidae.–Of these Old World forms Sub-fam. 1, Glareolinae, includes the genera Glareola, Cursorius, Pluvianus, and perhaps Ortyxelus, the first two having the middle claw pectinated, and Glareola a short, stout bill with wide gape, a forked tail, and long pointed wings. G. pratincola, the Pratincole, which occasionally visits Britain by way of Western France, breeds in Southern Europe and North Africa, and extends to Sind and the Tian-Shan Mountains in Asia, migrating to other parts of India and to South Africa. It is brown above, with blacker wings and tail, the secondaries having white tips, and the rectrices white bases and coverts; the throat is buff, surrounded by a black line, the breast brownish, the abdomen white; the axillaries and inner under wing-coverts are chestnut, the bill and feet blackish, with red base to the former. G. orientalis, found from Mongolia to Ceylon, the Malay Archipelago, and North Australia, has the tail less forked and little white on the secondaries; G. ocularis, of Madagascar, recorded from Mauritius and East Africa, has a pale chestnut breast, and the outer pair of rectrices white with broad black ends; G. melanoptera (nordmanni) of South-East Europe and West Asia, migrating to South Africa, has black axillaries and under wing-coverts, as have the long-legged G. grallaria (isabella) with slightly forked tail and chestnut flanks, which breeds in Eastern Australia and occurs from New Guinea to Borneo, and the small grey-backed G. lactea of India, Ceylon, and Burma, with much white on the wings. The other species have reddish feet, fading to yellow; G. cinerea, ranging from the Niger to the Congo, possesses a rufous nuchal collar and white axillaries; G. nuchalis of the White Nile, and the hardly separable G. emini of Foda in Equatorial Africa, have a white collar and grey axillaries; G. megapoda, extending from Liberia to the Niger, shews a rufous collar and grey axillaries. The last five forms, and G. ocularis, have the tail merely emarginated. Pratincoles have a shrill, screaming note and Swallow-like flight, insects, on which they feed, being ordinarily captured on the wing; but the general habits are those of Plovers, the birds running very fast, and the parents often swooping down upon an intruder, or cowering on the ground to draw attention from their brood. They frequent sand-banks, lagoons, bare plains, or coast-lands, laying two, three, or rarely four oval greenish-buff or greyish eggs, with purplish-black, brown, and grey marblings, without any nest, on the sun-baked mud.
The genus Cursorius, or Courser, inhabits the hotter portions of the Old World. C. gallicus, the Cream-coloured Courser, which visits Britain and the southern half of Europe irregularly, is met with in the Canary and Cape Verd Islands, North Africa, and the countries from Arabia to Northern India. The brown bill is thick and decurved, the whitish legs are long; the plumage is buff, with slaty nape, black remiges, axillaries, under wing-coverts, and subterminal tail-bar; the face is white with a black post-ocular streak. Seldom found in flocks, this bird frequents dry sandy plains and deserts, crouching to avoid notice, running with extraordinary speed if approached, but rarely rising on the wing. The flight, however, is at times protracted. The food consists almost entirely of insects, such as grasshoppers, yet it includes small molluscs; the note is harsh; while two, or exceptionally three, round stone-coloured eggs with grey and brown markings are deposited on the bare ground. The axillaries and under wing-coverts are greyish-buff in C. somalensis, of Somaliland, but brownish-grey in C. rufus, of South Africa, which has a black abdominal patch. C. temmincki (senegalensis), of most of the Ethiopian Region, and C. coromandelicus, of India and Ceylon, are similar, but have the nape black and white, the latter possessing white tail-coverts.
In the remaining species (Rhinoptilus of some authors) the bill is almost straight. C. bicinctus of South Africa is mottled with brown above, having much chestnut on the wings, white tail-coverts, and buff under parts crossed by two black pectoral bars. C. bisignatus, ranging from East Africa to Benguela, and C. hartingi of Somali-Land, are hardly more than races of the above. C. cinctus of East Equatorial Africa, and the barely separable C. seebohmi of South-West Africa, are easily recognised by the four bands on the white lower surface, the highest and lowest being brown, and the two intermediate black, with a streaky buff space between them. C. chalcopterus, of the Ethiopian Region generally, and C. albifasciatus with a more distinct white alar bar, are plain brown birds with metallic purple hues on the black primaries, white post-ocular streak and throat, and white belly surmounted by a black band. C. bitorquatus, of the districts near Madras, differs in shewing below three successive bands or gorgets, one of rufous and two of brown, separated by white. Though all Coursers agree in general habits, the last three seem to prefer bushy ground, and C. rufus will perch in trees.
Pluvianus aegyptius, apparently allied to Cursorius, inhabits West and North-East Africa, wandering to Palestine and South Europe, and being even recorded from Sweden. The head, nape, and long mantle-feathers overhanging the grey back are glossy black; the wings and tail are black and white varied with grey, the lower parts rufous-white with a black pectoral band, while a line of white encircles the crown. This bird, called "Zic-zac" from its noisy chattering cry (cf. p. [276]), is usually seen skimming swiftly over the water, or running and feeding along the shores. The yellowish stone-coloured eggs, with umber and grey markings, are commonly found buried in the sand, but so are those of the Ringed Plover in wind-swept spots. Probably this species, and not Hoplopterus spinosus, is the τροχίλος of Herodotus, the Crocodile-bird of later writers, which enters the Crocodile's mouth to feed.