FEMALE SEX PREDOMINANT 



CHAPTER VII 



The Painted Snipe 



THIS gaily coloured Indian and African bird will 

 serve as an instance of a not very common phe- 

 nomenon among birds, that is the predominance of 

 the female over the male sex. As a rule it is the male 

 who is gorgeous or gaudy ; he is the ornamental part 

 of the household, and ruffles it abroad with his fellows, 

 while the dowdily plumed hen stays at home and attends 

 to her domestic cares. The painted snipe, however, 

 belongs to a matriarchal species, where it is the female 

 who is predominant in size and colouring, the cock bird, 

 it is said, attending to the duties of incubation. A 

 curious structural character emphasizes this reversed 

 relation of the sexes. In many birds belonging to quite 

 different groups the windpipe, instead of passing straight 

 down to its entrance into the lungs, deviates into the 

 substance of the breastbone, or under the skin, and 

 there becomes variously coiled, the anatomical fact 

 being followed by a more strident voice. Where the 

 sexes differ in this it is the rule for the female to have a 

 straight trachea without convolutions. Now in Rhyn- 

 chcea capensis, as the painted snipe is known to ornith- 

 ologists, it is the female who has a slightly coiled trachea, 

 while that of the male is perfectly uncoiled. The term 

 snipe is a misnomer when applied to this fowl, although 

 it undoubtedly does belong to that great group of wading 



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