ROSTEATULA CAPENSIS 1'25 



aud young, but again it will be noticed that he makes no mention 

 of any birds in the female garb, and indeed implies by the context, 

 that they were all in the male plumage. It appears, therefore, that 

 these parties consist of one or more adult cocks with their young, 

 and the only inference we can draw from this is that the cocks are 

 left to look after the nestlings and bring them up. 



As regards the hatching of the eggs, all I can say at present is 

 that every bird that I have shot o£f the nest, or have had sent me as 

 being trapped or shot ofl' the nest, has been a male. Hume writes 

 on this point : " In no less than three cases in which old birds have 

 to my knowledge been captured on the eggs, such old birds have 

 proved to be males." 



Against this theory is Captain E. A. Butler's experience, which 

 appears to be that both birds take part in incubation. He says, in 

 describing the nidification, that " the old birds are almost always 

 near the nest," and all through this note he uses the plural number 

 for the parents, although he does not definitely say that he has ever 

 shot a female off the nest, though in one paragraph he speaks of the 

 bird as a female. The conclusion I have arrived at that the male 

 alone carries out the duties of incubation has been further corrobor- 

 ated by other observers and sportsmen, some of whom did not even 

 know that the more gaudy bird of the two was the female, and had, 

 until they were told this, stoutly asserted that the female always sat 

 on the nest and the male never. The fact that the female of the two 

 sexes is provided with the powerful voice apparatus, and does the 

 calling, to which it must be presumed the male replies in person, 

 certainly looks as if she were the dominant factor in their matri- 

 monial arrangements. 



Yet again we find that the breeding season of the Painted Snipe 

 extends practically the whole year round, ceasing in different locali- 

 ties only when the state of the country renders the food supply 

 precarious, and when the scanty meals and constant work necessi- 

 tated to obtain even these suffice to quell for the time being all 

 desires to nest. Now this continuous laying of eggs by the female 

 would prove far too great a strain on any bird's constitution if the 

 time between the laying of each clutch of eggs were taken up in 

 hatching them and rearing the young, but, given this time in which 



