82 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS 



Swinhoc's Snipe. 



Gallinago megala. 



When the sportsman has grasped the difference between 

 fantail and pintail snipes he can, if so disposed, find some mild 

 additional interest in looking through the pintails in his bag to 

 see if by any chance a specimen of Swinhoe's snipe has fallen 

 to his lot ; for this very rare species has only recently been 

 added to our lists, and much resembles the pintail in most of 

 its characters. 



The distinctive point, as is so often the case with snipe, is 

 to be looked for in the tail; in Swinhoe's snipe the tail-feathers 

 are twenty in number, the six central ones being normal, while 

 the rest, though decidedly narrow in comparison to them, are not 

 so markedly so as to be strikingly noticeable and to be compared 

 to pins. The tail is thus intermediate in type between a fantail 

 snipe's and a pintail's. 



It will be remembered that in the fantail all the tail-feathers 

 look much alike, while in the pintail, which has about two dozen 

 tail-feathers altogether, the side ones are very strikingly distinct, 

 and though they are variable in number there are always at least 

 eight normal ones in the centre. 



Mr. Stuart Baker was the first to recognize this bird as an 

 Indian species; he shot one himself at Dibrugarh in 1903, and 

 had a skin sent him from the Shan States in December, 1908. 

 That the birds should have been killed in these districts is 

 natural enough, for the natural haunts of the species are Eastern 

 Siberia and Mongolia, Japan, and China, whence in winter it 

 goes to the Philippines, Borneo, and the Moluccas. One would, 

 therefore, expect it would be more likely to turn up in Burma 

 and Tenasserim, and it seems extremely likely that it has been 

 overlooked, for though it is bigger than most pintails, there is 

 nothing about it to catch the eye. In case it breeds anywhere 

 on our eastern border hills, it may be mentioned that the eggs 

 are said to be peculiarly shaped like a woodcock's, and pale 

 cream or buff in ground colour with grey and brown spots. 



