80 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



ordinary feathers in the centre of the tail, while outside these 

 are several pairs, up to eight, the number being variable, of 

 curious short and very narrow feathers ; these are those which 

 give the bird its name, being little broader than a stout pin. 

 Thus a fully developed tail in this species has twenty-six 

 feathers. Specimens with only half-a-dozen pairs of pin-feathers 

 in the tail are unusually large in body, and have particularly 

 yellow legs ; they weigh over five ounces, whereas ordinary pin- 

 tail snipe average 3"91 ounces in the cock and 4"2 in the hen. 



These big specimens very hkely constitute a distinct local 

 race, or sub-species, for as Mr. W. Val Weston, who first drew 

 attention to them, says, they arrive at a different time from the 

 ordinary pintail snipe, coming in with the fantails, which arrive 

 in India later than the other species. Pintails may come in, 

 though very rarely, in July, and regularly arrive in the beginning 

 of August, but do not get down to Ceylon till October. On the 

 whole they are more distributed towards the southern and 

 eastern parts of our Empire than the fantails ; I give the 

 Burmese name because pintails are the snipe commonly got in 

 Burma, for as a matter of fact natives seem never to distinguish 

 between the two kinds, observant as many of them are. At the 

 end of the year there are hardly any pintails in the north, but 

 in March they are again the more abundant species in the north- 

 east ; and some may be found after the fantails have all gone 

 north. 



Thus, although in many places and at many times both kinds 

 occur abundantly side by side, on the whole they tend to replace 

 each other quite as much as to occur together. Another factor 

 in their separation lies in a slight difference in their habits — 

 as might be expected from the different form of the bill, which 

 is less adapted for feeling in mud in the pintail — their food is 

 rather different. Both eat worms, but while fantails chiefly con- 

 sume water-snails and water-insects in addition, pintails consume 

 land creatures in large quantities, land snails, caterpillars, and 

 even beetles, grasshoppers, and flying ants. Such food is 

 naturally sought on different ground, and so, though both are 

 often found in the same places, pintail are often found feeding 

 on grass land and in stubble fields, and will lie up for the day in 

 jungle and dry grass. 



