BO8TRATULA.. 295 



Length of males 10 ; tail 1-6 ; wing 5 ; tarsus 1-75 ; bill at front 

 1*75. Females are larger : wing about 5*4, bill nearly 2. 



Distribution. Throughout the greater part of Africa, Madagascar, 

 and Southern Asia. This bird is common in the Nile valley in 

 Egvpt, and has been reported from Asia Minor, but has not been 

 observed in Arabia, Persia, or Baluchistan. It is, however, said by 

 Hutton to occur at Kandahar, and it was obtained by Captain 

 Cook in the Kuram valley, and by Stoliczka on the Wular Lake, 

 Kashmir. As a rule it seldom occurs in the Himalayas, but is 

 found all over India, Ceylon, and Burma, and, though it is rare in 

 Tenasserim and the Malay Peninsula, it ranges east to Sumatra, 

 Java, Borneo and the Philippines, the southern and eastern parts 

 of China, and Southern Japan. 



Habits, fyc. The Painted Snipe is resident, though it moves 

 about the country as its haunts dry or are inundated, and iri some 

 parts of India it is only found in the monsoon. It keeps to moist, 

 not flooded, ground and thick rushes or grass, often mixed with 

 bushes. It has much the skulking running habits and somewhat 

 the flight of Kails, and is usually difficult to flush. It swims well. 

 The female has a guttural croaking note, that of the male is 

 shriller, the difference being due to the construction of the trachea. 

 Painted Snipes feed mainly on insect grubs and mollusca, but also 

 eat grain, seeds of grass, &c. They afford no sport in shooting 

 and are very inferior eating, coarse and muddy in taste. They 

 breed probably twice in the year or even oftener, and nests have 

 been found at all seasons. The nest is the usual hollow, often 

 with a pad of grass or rushes, and the eggs are four in number, 

 yellowish stone-colour as a rule, with very large irregular blackish- 

 brown blotches, and measure about 1-39 bv 1. 



