8 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOClETY^Vol. XX. 



enormously in size there is no difference in the ranges of size between- 

 the sexes. One gets adult males as small as the smallest female and 

 big females as big as the biggest males. 



I have made very careful inquiries amongst sportsmen and others 

 concerning the comparative size of the sexes and have found most of 

 them under the impression- that one sex or the other — their ideas 

 varied as to which it was— was much bigger than the other. This is 

 undoubtedly due to the fact that it takes a woodcock two years to 

 grow to its full size and the difference in dimensions between a bird 

 of six months old and one of eighteen months is very great. 



Another question which has never been settled is the reason or 

 cause of the curious grey phase of colouration so often met with in 

 the Woodcock. The colouration of this variety looks as if it had had 

 all the red pigment washed out of it. I have been unable to explain 

 this myself in any way. I have proved that it is not sexual and I have 

 also ascertained that though it is much more common in young than 

 in old birds it is by no means confined to the former. Major Wilson, 

 to whom I owe thanks for much information and many useful notes, 

 once shewed me two birds shot by him on the same day in Shillong, 

 Khasia Hills, which might have been taken for different species so 

 un-alike were they in tone of colouration. In this case the older, 

 heavier and bigger bird was in the grey phase and, if I remember 

 rightly, both grey and rufous birds were females. 



It would appear, therefore, that in India young birds are more 

 frequently grey than are adults but that this phase of colouration is 

 by no means confined to such. In fact I have myself seen fully 

 adult birds almost as grey in tone as the solitary or wood-snipe. 



Ogil vie -Grant (in loc. cit.) observes " The Woodcock is more or less 

 dimorphic in plumage, ie., two more or less distinct phases of plum- 

 age are found ; some birds have the general colour of the upper 

 part greyer, while in others it is richer and more rufous. The 

 grey phase and the rufous phase occur in both sexes alike, in fully 

 adult birds ; but as far as my experience goes, the grey phase is 

 never found among young birds, which are always more or less 

 rufous. These represent what is often described by sportsmen as the 

 smaller rufous " species" of Woodcock." 



Ogilvie-Grant in this same paper discusses an apparent disparity in 

 numbers between female and male Woodcocks and notes that out of 



