SNIPES. 



105 



tanks in the " Wanny " district, their musical notes resounding all day and all night 

 long through the picturesque forests on their borders. These sounds are essentially 

 typical of the wild regions in the northern forests of this island, and must always 

 associate themselves in the mind of the naturalist with his wanderings in Ceylon. 



The snipes, sandpipers, curlews, etc., form another and still larger family than the 

 plovers, being known as the SCOLOPACID^E, a group of considerable homogeneity, and 

 chiefly characterized by the long, thin, and flexible bill, which is covered by a soft 

 skin, at the end richly provided with nerves that make the bill a very sensitive probe 





FIG. 49. Jacana spitwsa, 



fit to detect in the soft mud and extricate the worms and animalcules upon which 

 they feed. Otherwise they agree pretty much with the Charadriidse, having a similar 

 pterylosis, and similar muscular and intestinal arrangements. Like those they also 

 possess occipital foramina, basipterygoid processes and supra-orbital impressions. 



Distributed all over the world, from the icy regions of the north pole to the equa- 

 tor, the snipe tribe populates the sea-shores, the river-banks, the swamps and marshes, 

 while a few only as, for instance, the woodcock prefer the drier woodlands to 

 moister localities near the water. 



