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near the place from which it was 

 started. 



FAN-TAIL SNIPE. 



GALLINAGO GALLINAGO (l.) 

 (Gallinago coelestis Frenz.) 



Description. — Length about 11 

 inches. 



Bill brown, paler at base. Iris 

 brown. Legs yellowish green. 



Upper parts a mixture of black, 

 grey, and reddish with rufous spots. 

 Throat, breast, and under tail coverts 

 grey spotted with brown. Abdomen 

 white iDarred with black on the flanks. 



This bird is similar in a general way 

 to the other snipes, but there are four 

 buff stripes extending down the back 

 (pale in winter) being the outside 

 margins of the scapulars, which are 

 brown in the center. These points 

 together with the 14 tail feathers, all 

 approximately of the same width, 

 serve to identify the bird. 



Distribution. — Europe, Asia, and 

 Africa. This snipe is a winter visitant 

 in the Yangtse Valley, being more or 

 less common from September to May. 

 It breeds in the North. 



Notes. — " Late in March or early in 

 April the snipes pair, and it is then 

 that the males begin to practice their 

 curious aerial exercises, familiar to any 

 one who observes wild bird life, and 

 about which so much had been said by 

 ornithologists. The performance takes 

 place at all hours of the day, but chiefly 

 towards evening, the bird rising to an 

 immense height in the air, and pre- 

 cipitating himself downwards with 

 astonishing violence, producing in his 

 descent the peculiar sound variously 



