144 MANUAL OF PHILIPPINE BIRDS. 



Species. 



a 1 . Tail-feathers twenty or more, the outer ones stiffened and very narrow; dark 

 bars on axillars wider than the white bars. 



6 1 . Tail shorter, about 4$ mm.; outer feathers narrower stenura (p. 144) 



6 2 . Tail longer, about 53 mm.; outer feathers wider megala (p. 145) 



a". Tail-feathers usually fourteen in number, neither excessively stiff nor narrow; 



dark bars on axillurs narrow or obsolete gallinago (p. 146) 



121. GALLINAGO STENURA (Bonaparte). 

 PINTAIL SNIPE. 



Scolopax stenura BONAPARTE, ex Kuhl MS. Ann. Stor. Nat. Bolonga (1830), 



4, 335. 

 Gallinago stenura SHABPE, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1890), 24, 019; Hand-List 



( 1899 ) , 1 , 105 ; MCGREGOR and WORCESTER, Hand-List ( 1900 ) , 29. 



Calayan (McGregor); Mindanao (Murray)-, Palawan (White). Eastern Si- 

 beria to the Yenesei ; in winter China to Malay Peninsula. 



"Adult male in breeding plumage. Above blackish, striped and mottled 

 with sandy isabelline; streaks on the sides of back and scapulars very 

 broad ; upper surface interspersed with rufous spots, but general color 

 of the light markings sandy buff, especially on hind neck; wing-coverts 

 dark brown, marginal series almost uniform, the rest barred with rufous 

 or sandy buff, with paler tips, the rufous and black bars very distinct 

 on the greater coverts, where they are regularly indicated ; alula and 

 primary-coverts blackish, with narrow white tip; quills blackish, the 

 first primary browner on outer web, which is narrowly fringed with 

 white; secondaries (outermost of which do not exceed primary-coverts in 

 length) narrowly fringed with white at tip, inner ones barred with rufous 

 and blackish, mostly on outer web; innermost long secondaries barred 

 across, especially near the ends ; tail-feathers blackish brown, ten central 

 ones with a broad band of pale chestnut, followed by a subterminal bar 

 of blackish brown, before a pale rufescent tip; a second rufous band, con- 

 siderably broken up, a little beyond the middle of the feather; eight outer 

 feathers on each side becoming narrower and narrower, till the outermost 

 has scarcely any web at all ; these wire-like feathers with white tips, with 

 an indication of a blackish subterminal bar; crown black, mottled with 

 rufous spots and having a mesial streak of sandy isabelline ; a loral line 

 of black, surmounted by a supra-loral patch of sandy isabelline continued 

 into a narrow eyebrow; sides of face and ear-coverts isabelline, rufous 

 just behind eye, entire sides of face having more or less distinct small 

 streaks of blackish, and traversed by a broad blackish line across ear- 

 coverts; fore part of cheeks and chin sandy isabelline; throat and chest 

 sandy buff, slightly mottled with streaks and narrow horseshoe-shaped 

 bars of blackish; breast and abdomen white; sides of body slightly tinged 

 with sandy buff, and distinctly barred with black; under tail-coverts 

 pale sandy buff, with blackish centers, longer ones narrowly barred with 



