380 BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 



the Province only in the winter months. I have generally seen it in small 

 flocks of four or five individuals on the banks of the larger rivers and 

 creeks, but it also frequents marshes and paddy-fields. It feeds in the 

 water or on its edges, picking up small insects from the mud with its long 

 bill. In breeds in various parts of India and Ceylon in June and July, 

 laying four eggs either on the bare ground or in a nest made of a few 

 pieces of grass ; the eggs are buff blotched with black. 



H. leucocephalus , from the Australian region, has the whole head white 

 and the hind neck black ; otherwise it resembles H. candidus. 



Genus SCOLOPAX, Briss. 



726. SCOLOPAX RUSTICULA. 

 THE WOODCOCK. 



Scolopax rusticola, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 243 ; Jerd. B. Ind. ii. p. 670 ; Beavan, 

 Ibis, 1868, p. 391 ; Bl. B. Burm. p. 157 ; Anders. S. F. iii. p. 356 ; Dresser, 

 Birds Eur. vii. p. 615, pi. ; Hume fy JDav. S. F. vi. p. 458 ; Hume, S. F. viii. 

 p. 112 ; Bingham, 8. F. viii. p. 196 ; Scully, S. F. viii. p. 353 ; Hume fy Marsh. 

 Game Birds, iii. p. 311, pi. Scolopax rusticula, David et Oust. Ois. Chine, 

 p. 475 ; Legge, Birds Ceylon, p. 806 ; Oates, 8. F. x. p. 238. 



Description. Male and female. Forehead and cheeks white mottled with 

 brown; a broad brown stripe from the gape to the eye and another 

 narrower one from the hinder part of the cheeks to the nape ; crown and 

 nape crossed by three broad bands of black and two of ochraceous 

 chestnut ; upper plumage and wing-coverts a mixture of rufous, grey and 

 brown, the scapulars and back also blotched with deep black ; tail black 

 with small rufous notches on the outer webs, the tips broadly ashy ; quills 

 brown, notched on the edge of both webs with rufous ; chin and throat 

 whitish ; the whole under plumage pale ruf escent grey narrowly cross- 

 barred with brown ; the under tail-coverts also streaked with black ; the 

 lower throat and sides of the neck tinged with deep chestnut. 



Bill dull flesh-colour, becoming dark brown towards the tip ; legs dull 

 greyish flesh-colour or flesh-brown ; iris blackish brown. (Dresser.} 



Length about 14 inches, tail 3' 5, wing 7 to 8, tarsus 1*4, bill from gape 

 about 3' 5. The female is rather larger than the male. 



The Woodcock occurs in Burmah in the winter months, but is rare and 

 seldom met with. It seems rather commoner near Tonghoo than elsewhere 

 in the Province, for I heard of a gentleman at that station having killed 

 seven birds in one morning. This is, I imagine, an unusual circumstance. 



