90 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



fifst attracted by some letters to the ' Indian Field ' written by Mr. 

 W. Val Weston, under the nom-de-plume of " Silvertown." On the 

 29th October he wrote giving the measurements of one of these 

 snipes : " beak 2^-, wing Sj, weight 5^, oz." ; on the 11th he sent the 

 measurements of two more, " bill at front 2- and 2'\, wing 5s and 

 5i," and on the ;iOth November he recorded a fourth, but did not 

 give measurements of bill and wing. 



Mr. Val Weston has kindly added further information in regard 

 to these big Pintails in letters. He first sent me a specimen (now 

 in the B.N.H. Society's Museum) which measured when dry, wing 

 5'35 inches, bill at gape 2'G8, and then on the 2nd January, 1910, 

 wrote me as follows : — 



" Yesterday I shot two more of these big snipes, and also an 

 ordinary Pintail and a lot of Fantail. The difference between the 

 big and small forms is most marked, and they are easily distin- 

 guished when in the air. The measurements of the two are, 

 wing, each 5J, bill at front, each 2J, weight, both considerably 

 over 5 oz. Tail feathers 22 and 2:1 The big Pintail does not 

 come in at the same time as the ordinary small birds. By the 

 1st September the country is full of Pintail Snipe, but amongst 

 them never one of these big birds. By October the Pintails have 

 moved on, and their place is taken liy Fantails, and it is then that 

 we begin to look for the l)ig birds. Tltcij come tcitJi tlie Fantails 

 and not witli tJic Pi}ifails. By the middle or end of February the 

 Pintails begin to come back, and in March there are three Pintails 

 to one Fantail, but I have never shot one of these snipes later 

 than the 19th February, that is to say, never during the northern 

 migration of the Pintails." 



From the inquiries I have made from sportsmen, there seems to 

 be a very general idea that there is a form of Pintail which differs 

 from the ordinary birds in being much larger, but an examination of 

 the skins sent to prove this shows that these birds are nothing but 

 very large specimens of the ordinary Pintail. I can see no single 

 point about them beyond their unusual size by which one can dis- 

 criminate them, though, as already observed, these very large birds 

 seldom, if ever, have more than twenty-two feathers in their tails. 

 This difference in size is perhaps even more noticeable in bulk than 



