Painted Snijie in Ceylon. 533 



distance away. There consequently seems no reasonable 

 ground to doubt that the cock bird does look after his 

 offspring until such time as they are capable of looking 

 after themselves. 



Judging from the following instance it would seem that 

 the period of paternal care is a somewhat protracted one : — 



On the 14th of March, 1910, I flushed four Painted Snipe 

 in a small field in very rapid succession, and shot tliera all. 

 To all appearances they were all adult males, and it was 

 only on close examination that I found that three of the 

 four birds were young in their first plumage ; the last was, 

 presuniabl}^, their long-suifering parent. 



Darwin states that, " When the adult female is more 

 conspicuous than the adult male .... the young birds of 

 both sexes in their first plumage resemble the adult male.'^ 

 This law is well exemplified in the case of Rostratula 

 capensls, and it is only after the female has attained 

 maturity that she dons the brilliant plumage characteristic 

 of her sex. Some regard it as likely that the hen Rostratula 

 exhil)its seasonal dimorphism in her plumage, assuming her 

 gorgeous dress only during the breeding-time, while at other 

 seasons she resembles the male. Personally, I have shot 

 females in characteristic plumage in all the months of the 

 year, excepting i\Iay, June, and July, when, indeed, I have 

 hardly ever gone into a paddy-field. The fact that the 

 hen bird wears her gayer dress during nine months of the 

 year at least) renders it highly probable that she retains it 

 all the year through, and, except in her first year, has no 

 other. 



The theory by which Wallace accounted for the duller 

 plumage of hen birds, as compared with that of their mates, 

 finds additional support in the case of Rostratula capensis. 

 Here the female, with the acquisition of those characters 

 which unfit her for the perils of maternal duties, has lost 

 the maternal instinct, which has, to meet the lack, been 

 developed in the male. 



Concerning the courtship of these birds, I unfoi'tunately 

 know nothing-, and as they are comparatively scarce and of a 



SER. X. VOL. I. 2 o 



