48 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



" The irides are hazel to deep brown ; the fronts of the legs and 

 toes are grey, sometimes, perhaps commonly, bluish, sometimes 

 more plumbeous or slaty and sometimes again with a drabby shade, 

 or again greenish, and generally everywhere paler in the female ; the 

 back of the legs and soles fleshy, sometimes pinky, sometimes bluish 

 or dusky ; the claws horny-brown to almost black ; of the bill nearly 

 the terminal one-third is brown to blackish-brown ; the basal two- 

 thiids much paler and with a tinge sometimes reddish fleshy, some- 

 times yellowish fleshy, some livid, sometimes drab." {Hume.) 



Distribution. — Blanford thus defines the distribution of the Wood 

 Snipe within our hmits, outside of which it has not yet been 

 obtained. 



" In the Himalayas as far as Dalhousie to the westward and 

 Sikkim to the east, and probably {urther in the latter direction : also 

 in the hills south of Assam and in Manipur, occasionally in Burmah 

 even as far south as Tenasserim, and as a winter visitor only, in the 

 hills of southern India — Coorg, Wynaad, Nilgiris, Anaimalais, Shev- 

 roys and probably others. In one case this species is said to have 

 been recognised in Ceylon " [but Wait considers this a doubtful 

 record] . " A very few specimens have been obtained wliilst mi- 

 grating, one at Calcutta by Blyth, two at Eusselkonda by Macmaster, 

 one in Serguja by Bull, and probable occurrences have been recorded 

 at Nasik and Dharwar." 



The Wood Soipe extends all along the Himalayas from the 

 eastern point mentioned by Blanford, and I have had either records 

 of its occurrence or specimens sent me from the Dooars, Buxa, 

 Jalpaiguri, Barpeta (south of Bhutan) and Tezpur (south of the 

 Dafla Hills), Cachar, Sylhet and Myitkyina (Capt. Clifford), thus 

 linking up its range almost from point to point. 



There is in the Society's collection a specimen of a Wood Snipe 

 (in spirit) shot at Thana near Bombay by Mr. Thos. H. Moore, in 

 January, 1896. 



Nidification. — There is nothing on record about the nidification of 

 the Wood Snipe at present except in connection with the eggs ob- 

 tained by Mandelh in Sikkim. Three of these eggs are in the 

 British Museum, but one of them is marked " 869 GalUnago solitaria, 

 native Sikkim, 18-6-79 " and, as Gates remarks, it seems possible 

 that Mandelli's reputed eggs of the Wood Snipe were afterwards 



