290 CHARADRIIFORMES CHAP. 
obtained by probing the soil with the long sensitive beak. The 
flight is rapid and steady, the note—not uttered when flushed— 
is whistling ; while durmg incubation a curious habit prevails 
among the cocks of “ roading” or traversing fixed routes at twi- 
light, and uttering hoarse notes. The nest is a depression, usually 
lined with dry leaves ; the four eggs, much larger and rounder than 
those of the Snipe, are creamy-buff with pale brown, grey, and lilae 
markings. The young are often carried by the parents between 
their thighs, the bill probably aiding to steady them. Woodcocks* 
Fic. 60.—Woodeock. Scolopax rusticula. 
~The 
are now seldom snared or nettedin England. 8S. saturata of Java 
and North-West New Guinea is a darker bird with almost uniform 
black primaries,and awhite abdomen with dusky bars. S.rochussent 
of the Moluccas has partly bare tibiae, hke many Snipe, and a nearly 
plain buff breast. The Woodcock of eastern North America is 
Philohela minor, which has the three outer primaries curiously 
attenuated. 
The genus Gallinago differs from the above in having longi- 
tudinal stripes on the head. G. caelestis, the Common or Fuil 
Snipe,’ breeds in Northern and Central Europe and Asia, and 
even in North Italy; it is recorded from Greenland and the 
Bermudas, and migrates to the Atlantic Islands, the Gambia, the 
Upper Nile, and the Indian Region. Its brown, black, and buff 
plumage, with three buff streaks on the head, is well-known, 
while there are normally fourteen rectrices. G. sabinii is merely 
a dark form. As regards its autumnal influx and food the Snipe 
resembles the Woodcock, but the cry of “scape-scape” and twisting 
' For the nerves of the bill, see Yarrell’s Brit. Birds, 4th ed. iii. 1882-84, pp. 346, 347. 
