268 A VES ORDER CHARADRIIFORMES. 



Neoscolopax rochusseni. All the woodcocks differ from the snipes in having 



successive broad bars of black and buff on the hinder head and neck, whereas 



the snipes always have a buff band down the centre of the crown. They are 



likewise birds of the woods and forests rather than the 



The Woodcocks, open marshes, which the snipes love to frequent. The 



Genus jack snipe (Limnocryptes gallinula) differs from the true 



Scolopax. snipes in having four notches in the hinder margin of the 



sternum instead of two. 



The true snipes (Gallinago), of which our common snipe (G. gallinago) is 

 the type, differ from the woodcocks in having much more pointed wings, 

 the long inner secondaries equalling the primaries in length, while the 

 markings on the head are longitudinal, not crosswise. They are lovers of 

 the marshes, as a rule, but some of them occur only on the high lands, and 

 appear to have the habits of woodcocks. Such are the wood-snipe (G. 

 nemoricola) of the Himalayas, and the imperial snipe (G. imperialis) of the 

 Andes of Colombia, and Jameson's snipe (G. jamesoni) from the Andes of 

 Ecuador in South America. In the Auckland and Chatham Islands are 

 found peculiar tawny -coloured species (G. aucklandica and G. pusilla), which 

 run like rails, and do not take to flight, unless very hard pressed. With the 



exception of these few resident species, 

 snipes are migratory birds, nesting in 

 the temperate and sub- Arctic regions of 

 the north, and going to the far south in 

 winter. Thus Latham's snipe (G. aits- 

 trans') nests in Japan and winters in 

 Australia, and the North American 

 Wilson's snipe wanders south to British 

 Guiana and Brazil, and the great snipe 

 (G. major), which breeds in the north 

 of Europe, winters in South Africa. 



Fig. 30.-THE COMMON SKIPE 



(Gallinago gallinago). of the tail- feathers, our own snipe hav- 



ing only 14, though sometimes it is 



found with 16, but in the wire-tailed snipes, G. stenura and G. megcda, as 

 many as 26 and 20 are found. These two species nest in Eastern Siberia, 

 and visit India and China in great numbers on migration. The outer tail- 

 feathers in G. stenura are reduced to wire-like plumes, the eight feathers on 

 the outside measuring less than 0'2 inch in width. The largest of the snipes 

 are G. gigantea from Southern Brazil, and G. undulata of British Guiana, 

 which are from 15 to 20 inches in length. 



A curious habit of the common snipe during the nesting season is known 

 a^ " drumming." "The male may then be seen," says Mr. Seebohm, " in broad 

 daylight, high in the air, wheeling round and round in enormous circles, arid 

 flying diagonally upwards with rapid beats of the wings, then swooping down 

 an imaginary inclined plane with half-expanded and visibly-vibrating wings, 

 but with outspread tail-feathers, uttering a sound which is technically called 

 'drumming.'" The sound is heard only when the bird is descending, but 

 some observers assert that they have heard it proceeding from a snipe on the 

 ground or perched on a dead branch. It has been likened to the bleating of a 

 goat, and bears some resemblance to the suppressed gobble sometimes heard 

 from a turkey. Many naturalists believe that the sound is produced by the vi- 

 bration of the wings or the action of the air on the outspread tail ; but others, 



