110 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



of May, and are discontinued as soon as the feathers on the neck begin to fall out, 

 which happens about six weeks later. Soon after sunrise is the best time to observe 

 them, but I have watched them in Russia and in Holland as late as eleven in the fore- 

 noon. The excitement of the birds is intense ; they stoop with their heads low, and 

 their ruffs expanded, and fly at each other like game-cocks, but, unlike those birds, 

 they tight with the bill and not with the foot. The warts on the side of the face of 

 the ruff only remain during the spring, and, doubtless, serve as a protection against 

 the sword-thrusts of their adversaries." 



The Scolopacinae are birds of the twilight, and, like all birds of similar habits, are 

 structurally adapted to their peculiar manners of life. Thus, the plumage is soft, and 

 the coloration has that curiously mottled character which we will find in the owls and 

 goat-suckers. The eyes are large and full, but in order to give them place in the little 

 snipe-head without diminishing the ears, which also are of great importance to noc- 

 turnal birds, the eyes have been pushed so far behind in the skull as to be situated 

 just above the ear-openings. The bill is very long, flexible, and covered with a soft 

 skin, richly supplied with nerves. The- tarsus, like that of the Tringinse, is scutellate 

 both in front and behind. The snipes proper, including the so-called woodcocks, are 

 cosmopolitan in their distribution, and of migratory habits in cold climates, the many 

 different species being of a bewildering similarity. A curious feature of these birds 

 is, that a number of species present strangely modified tail-feathers, the number of 

 which is often enormously increased over the normal, for instance, Gallinago stenura^ 

 from eastern Asia. This abnormality of the tail-feathers in many forms has been taken 

 as an argument in favor of the theory that the bleating sound of the common snipe 

 (Gallinago gallinago), is produced by aid of the rectrices. Others have contended 

 that the wing-feathers are the instrument by which it imitates so closely the goat, 

 and bitter discussions have been carried on between eminent ornithologists for more 

 than twenty years. Together with several distinguished observers, I hold that the 

 sound usually emanates from the throat, but that its bleating quality is produced by 

 the vibration of the wings when the bird descends from its height. We quote the 

 following from our own experience : 



" Very often the snipe would rise so high in the air as to become almost invisible to 

 the unaided eye, but still the strange sound rang vigorously down to the observer. 

 Not only this power of the sound, but even more so the nature of the tune itself, con- 

 vinced me that it originates from the throat, and not in any way either from the tail 

 or the wing feathers, as suggested by many European writers. It is true that the 

 wings are in a state of very rapid vibration during the oblique descent when the note is 

 uttered, but this circumstance does not testify only in favor of the theory of the sound 

 being produced by the wing, as the vibration most conclusively accounts for the quiv- 

 ering throat-sound. Anybody stretching his arms out as if flying, and moving them 

 rapidly up and down, and simultaneously uttering any sound, is bound to ' bleat.' " 



This group includes a small, strongly-defined genus Avhich we designate by its oldest 

 name as Rostratula, more commonly known as Rhynclma. The geographical distri- 

 bution is somewhat remarkable, a representative species being found in each of the 

 following provinces : Africa and Madagascar, India and south-eastern Asia, Australia 

 and southern South America. It will be observed that this peculiar distribution is 

 similar to that of many isolated forms; for instance, the Jacanidae, HeliornithidaB, 

 Trogonidae, Dendrocygna, flatus, etc., affording a valuable hint as to the origin and 

 past distribution of these more or less ' aberrant ' forms. Rostratula, has other peculi- 



