22;o PLOVERS, SANDPIPERS, SNIPE, J AC AN AS, GULLS 



WOODCOCK AND NEST. 



rapidly than a snipe, and does not dart so much; while after a long journey its flight 

 is so slow and flapping that in the Himalayas the writer has kicked up these birds 

 from beneath his feet without at first realizing what they were. During the pairing 



season male woodcocks forsake for a time 

 their usual skulking habits, and fly slowly 

 up and down in the open at morn and 

 eve in a peculiar manner, at the same 

 time uttering a characteristic cry. The 

 term ' ' roding ' ' is applied to this nuptial 

 flight, and if two cocks thus engaged 

 should chance to meet, a fight immediately 

 ensues. Breeding very early in the season, 

 the woodcock nests in a mere depression 

 of the ground, which it lines abundantly 

 with dry grass and leaves, the four eggs 

 being generally laid in April. The nest is 

 usually situated among dead fern, with the 

 colors of which the plumage of the old birds 

 harmonizes. The young are at times car- 

 ried to a safer spot by their parent, who- 

 takes them one by one between her thighs, 

 and partially supports them by the beak. 



Under this title Mr. Seebohm groups a small number of species 

 Aberrant Snipe , j u 1 -^.j-iij 



characterized by possessing longitudinal head markings, and more 



than sixteen tail feathers; the tibia being occasionally feathered to the ankle- 

 joint, while the inner webs of the primaries are either plain, or have the bars 

 confined to their terminal portions. Of these, the solitary snipe (S. solitaria}, which 

 breeds in Turkestan and the Himalayas, visiting India in winter, and represented 

 by a variety in Eastern Siberia and Japan, may be distinguished by the white 

 streaks on the outer borders of the scapulars, the usual number of tail feathers 

 being apparently eighteen. It inhabits bare, treeless districts. Another member 

 is the wood snipe (S. nemorivaga) of the Himalayas, India, and Burma, which has 

 the habits of a woodcock, and may be recognized by the shortest secondary quills 

 projecting more than half an inch beyond the longest of the primary coverts, a 

 characteristic indicating limited flying powers, while the tibia is usually feathered 

 to the joint. The small pintail snipe (S. stemird), which breeds as far north as the 

 Arctic Circle from the Yenisei to the Pacific, and winters in India, China, Burma, 

 Malayana, etc. , is characterized by its twenty-six tail feathers, of which the 

 eight outermost on each side are very narrow, although gradually increasing in 

 width. 



members of this group, while agreeing with those of the last 

 in the longitudinal black markings on the head, are characterized by 

 the number of tail feathers never exceeding sixteen, by a considerable portion of 

 the tibia being bare, and by the total absence of bars on the inner webs of the pri- 

 mary quills. Of these, the great snipe (S. major), which has sixteen tail feathers, 



T pical Snioe 



