“Adult female.—Similar to the male. Length, 267; culmen, 71; wing, 135; tail, 62; tarsus, 33.

“Young.—Differs from the adult in being more rufous, especially on the throat and neck. The black markings of the back are more broken up and mottled with rufous bars, and the pale outer bands along the scapulars are not so wide. Seebohm states that young snipes may be recognized by not having a dark shaft-line on the light tips of the upper wing-coverts, but I have found indications of the latter in quite young birds.

“Nestling.—Covered with down of a chestnut color, interspersed with black along the back, and prettily variegated with silvery tips to the feathers; below the eye a whitish streak, bordered with lines of black; under surface of body bright chestnut, with a black spot on the throat and a black line across the fore neck.” (Sharpe.)

“This species and G. stenura are likely to be confounded unless special attention is paid to the differences between them. The first and most unfailing point of difference is in the tail. In G. gallinago the tail is composed of twelve, fourteen, or sixteen ordinary soft feathers; in G. stenura there are ten soft feathers and on either side of these a number, varying from five to nine, of narrow rigid feathers with apparently no webs. These narrow feathers require to be looked for; they do not strike the eye, as they are more or less hidden by the tail-coverts and are moreover very close together. A second point of difference lies in the coloration of the lower surface of the wing. In the pintail snipe the axillars and the under wing-coverts are very distinctly and regularly barred with dark brown throughout. In the common snipe these same parts are indistinctly barred, and there is always a patch on the coverts left quite white and unbarred. Mr. Hume points out one or two additional differences which it may be well to quote: In the common snipe the outer web of the first primary is white or nearly so, and the secondaries are broadly tipped with white; in the pintail the outer web of the first primary is of the same color as the inner, and the secondaries are only margined with albescent or brownish white.” (Oates.)

Genus ROSTRATULA Vieillot, 1816.

Bill long and slender but shorter than in Gallinago, its tip slightly swollen and bent downward with a median ridge and two lateral grooves, not pitted; culmen little longer than tarsus; female brighter in plumage than male.

124. ROSTRATULA CAPENSIS (Linnæus).
PAINTED SNIPE.

Pa-co′-bo, Manila.