GALLINAGO STENURA 



89 



lining and axillaries differed but little from the normal type, and had 

 not participated, at any rate to the same extent, in the general 

 change or loss of colour." 



The pale, or albinoid specimens, as Hume terms them, are almost 

 equally common in both species. Hume writes : — 



" I have a fine example now before me, procured by my friend, 

 Mr. J. C. Parker, near Calcutta. The lower surface does not much 

 differ from the normal type, except that the markings on the breast 

 and flanks are pale brownish grey, but the entire upper surface is a 

 mixture of pale cream-colour and pale brownish-grey. I have seen 

 at least half-a-dozen similar creamy-coloured birds in the course of 

 the last thirty years. I also once shot one that was snow-white 

 everywhere, with only faint traces of grey markings. 



The Bombay Natural History Society possesses three pale 

 specimens of G. sfenura, and there is a fourth in the Indian Museum, 

 Calcutta, all of which are very similar in their colouration to the 

 pale specimens of G. gallinago already described. The Bombay 

 birds, curiously enough, both have a few feathers of the scapulars 

 and tail normally or partly normally coloured, a fact I have also 

 noticed regarding some of the pale specimens of the Fantail. The 

 Indian Museum bird has a few normally coloured feathers on the 

 upper back, and appears to be moulting into normal plumage, as 

 these feathers are all new. 



Another specimen in the Indian Museum is very beautiful ; the 

 ground is pure white, but the markings are of a curious vinous-grey, 

 pale everywhere, with a few deeper markings showing on the 

 scapulars. 



In describing Gallinago sfenura, it has already been said that this 

 snipe normally has twenty-six or twenty-eight tail feathers, of which 

 the lateral eight or nine pairs are attenuated ; these outer feathers, 

 however, vary considerably in number, and it is not unusual to find 

 as few as six pairs only of these, the central feathers, ten in number, 

 never varying. 



It is a curious coincidence, also, that in the majority of cases in 

 which this small number of feathers is found, the birds seem con- 

 siderably larger than the average. My attention to this curious 

 combination, i.e., extraordinary size with so few tail feathers, was 



