WOOD-SNIPE 89 



while it is also bigger than most snipes, being a thick-set bird 

 weighing about five ounces and sometimes more, and measuring 

 a foot in length. On the other hand, it shows snipe points in the 

 bare hocks and the longitudinal dark markings on the head — 

 those of all woodcocks being transverse — and in having several 

 pairs of narrow feathers at the sides of the tail. The brown 

 colour of these, by the way, is one of the distinctions between 

 the wood-snipe and another big snipe often confounded with it, 

 the Eastern solitary snipe, which also has narrowed lateral 

 tail-feathers, which in its case are white with black bars. 



The plain dark pinion-quills, so different from those of the 

 woodcock with their chestnut chequering, are at first sight a 

 distinct point of essential snipiness ; but the American woodcock 

 (Philohela minor) which everyone would call a typical woodcock, 

 has also plain quills, so that, though useful to distinguish the 

 wood-snipe from a small woodcock, they do not count either way 

 in estimating its affinities. 



Even the haunts of the bird show its intermediate nature ; 

 it frequents not so much woodland itself, but thick high grass 

 cover at the edge of woods, wherever the ground is swampy or 

 contains small pools ; the grass it affects is such as would be 

 far too high and tangled for ordinary snipe, and it lies close and 

 does not go far when flushed. Although, as in the case of the 

 woodcock, stray specimens may occur away from the hills, this 

 species again resembles the head of the clan in being essentially 

 a mountain bird, breeding in the Himalayas, and visiting the 

 hills of southern India during the winter. It extends to 

 Manipur and even Tenasserim, but has not yet turned up 

 anywhere outside our Empire. 



Owing to its partiality for the unhealthy swamps of the Tarai, 

 it is a very little known bird, and besides appears to be really 

 scarce, although its retiring disposition and its habits, which 

 seem quite as nocturnal as the woodcock's, no doubt cause it 

 often to be overlooked ; in many places it can only be shot from 

 an elephant's back, and people hunting in this way are generally 

 after something better than snipe ! 



When rising, if it calls at all — it is generally silent, woodcock 

 fashion — the note is a double croak, rendered as "tok-tok." 



