76 GAME-BIBDS OF INDIA 



All snipes possess more or less sensitive beaks furnished with 

 nerves and also with muscles, which enable them to open the 

 terminal halves of their bills' when inserted in mud. Both nerves 

 and muscles are more highly developed in the Fantail than in any 

 other snipe (? G. media) and accordingly, as we should expect, this 

 species seeks its food more exclusively in mud and water than does 

 any other. 



On an examination of snipe shot very early in the morning or 

 late in the evening, that is to say, when feeding, I have often found 

 their stomachs full of a tiny white worm which seems to be found in 

 and about the roots of rice. I have shot snipe with these worms 

 actually in their bills or gullets as well as in their stomachs, but 

 never when the birds were shot late in the day before the sun had 

 sunk low. To obtain these worms the bird has to bore deep into the 

 mud, and must often have to put its whole head under water before 

 it can reach them, as I have shot snipe, containing this article of 

 diet, feeding in water some inches deep. 



The snipe is not a bird one would have expected to thrive in 

 captivity, but it has more than once been tamed. A most interesting 

 account of a tame Fantail Snipe reared by hand appeared in 'Nature,' 

 and again in the ' Avicultural Magazine.' This bird was so tame 

 that it took worms from the hand of its owner and was sufficiently 

 confiding to allow excellent photographs to be taken of it. 



The three Plates are excellent, but it is difficult on a half-tone 

 plate to show the differences between pure white and pale rufescent, 

 and it is probably this reason which accounts for both wings and 

 tails appearing to have more white on them than is generally the 

 case in all the species depicted. 



In Plate A the difference between the terminal portions of the 

 bills of GalVumcjo steniira and G. gallinago is not quite pronounced 

 enough, and the heads of both birds appear to be a trifle too large. 

 The difference also in tone and depth of colouring between the heads 

 of G. solitaria and G. nemoricola does not strike one so forcibly in 

 the plate as it does in real life, partly doubtless due to the fact 

 that solitaria is more grey and less rufescent than nemoricola, a 

 point which we can hardly expect to see emphasised in a black and 

 white plate. 



