270 WOODCOCK AND SNIPE 



by two or more narrow bands of black. The minor coverts chestnut-red, crossed 

 by narrow double bars of black enclosing a pale central area. The two lowermost 

 rows of minor coverts, the median and major coverts, are commonly tipped with 

 buff, forming four more or less distinct transverse bars. The major coverts and 

 secondaries are crossed by broad bars of black, and in some individuals these 

 bars are solid and conspicuous, in others the edges of the bars alone are black, 

 the centres being dark grey. Thus some individuals appear conspicuously 

 barred, others not. The primaries are dark grey, the outer webs notched by 

 triangular patches of chestnut, while the tips are white, and this pattern is no index 

 of sex or age. The rump and tail-coverts are chestnut, barred black. The tail 

 feathers are black, tipped above with silver-grey, below with white, and notched 

 along the exposed portions of the webs with chestnut. The breast and abdomen 

 are dull white or pale buff, barred with narrow dusky lines, and the under tail- 

 coverts are buff with black shaft-streaks and irregular loops of black. In the 

 males the shaft-streaks are more sharply defined than in the female, and the 

 feathers are more or less conspicuously tipped with white. The fledgling cannot 

 be distinguished from the adult when once the remiges have completed their 

 growth. The young in down are buff coloured, with a reddish chocolate median 

 band extending along the back to the crown, where it branches to run forwards 

 over the eye to the lores, enclosing a narrow median stripe. Often there is a buff 

 spot on the nape, which may enlarge to form a transverse bar cutting through 

 the median band just described. On either side of the dorsal band is a narrow 

 lateral stripe, [w. p. p.] 



2. Distribution. In the British Isles this species is widely distributed, 

 but somewhat local in the breeding season. It is naturally most numerous in well- 

 wooded districts, but is absent for no apparent reason from some localities which 

 appear to be well suited to it. In the Lake district it is numerous, and also in some 

 of the well-wooded parts of middle and north Scotland and in Ireland ; but there 

 are few counties where it has not been occasionally known to breed. Even on the 

 Orkneys and Shetlands, which can hardly boast of trees at all, it has been known to 

 nest occasionally, as well as on many of the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Outside the 

 British Isles it breeds on the Continent up to nearly 70 in Norway, 65 in Finland, 

 and 66 on the Petchora, and from these limits it is found southward in diminishing 

 numbers to the Caucasus and Crimea, the Balkans, Tyrol, North Italy and the 

 southern spurs of the Alps, and Central France. Its main European breeding- 

 haunts are the forests of Scandinavia and Russia. It breeds on the Atlantic isles 



