PAINTED SNIPE 93 



velvety tortoise-shell down, and when the family has to be 

 moved in order to avoid a foe, or even to seek food, the old 

 birds, or at any rate the hen, actually carries them, a habit very 

 rare in birds. It was long a puzzle how this was done, and one 

 picture even depicts the old bird with the baby riding pick-a- 

 back, but as a matter of fact observers both in Europe and in 

 India have established that they are really held between the 

 legs; and they are carried thus even when half-grown. Four 

 is the number of the family, the eggs producing them are laid 

 on a mere bed of the dead leaves found in the bird's usual 

 haunts ; they are of some shade of drab or buff in ground- 

 colour, and rather sparingly marked with brown and grey spots 

 of various tones and distribution ; they are about an inch and 

 three quarters in length. Indian eggs are not smaller than 

 European, as Mr. Baker points out, and he also shows that the 

 idea that the birds themselves are smaller in India is due to the 

 fact that it is the immature birds which are shot, these being 

 those which migrate south ; but no Indian specimen has yet 

 been shot weighing as much as a pound, which they often do 

 in Europe. The idea that the plumage shows any difference 

 with age has also been exploded, but some individual birds are 

 much greyer than others. 



Painted Snipe. 



* Rostratula capensis. Kane, Kols of Singbhoom. 



When out snipe-shooting, if a big specimen gets up and flies 

 straight off with an indolent fluttering flight and legs dangling 

 at first — moorhen-fashion, in fact — it may be known at once as 

 a painted snipe. Or if hit without the flight being noticed, and 

 not killed, the swearing hiss when approached, and pitiful 

 attempts at menace by the spreading of its spotted wings, 

 again give away the painted fraud; for this bird, the most 

 beautiful of all its tribe, although belonging to the same family 

 as the true snipe, cannot rightly be referred to the same section, 



RhynclicBa hengalensis on plate. 



