924 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



single soft note frequently repeated, kone, kone, kone," and Hume 

 says that to his ears it " most resembles the sound produced 

 by blowing into the neck of a phial." Hume's description of 

 the call seems to me to describe it well, but the reader must 

 not imagine that the note is a whistle. A strong blow into the 

 neck of a phial of course produces a whistle, but the call of the 

 female Painter resembles the blow when it just falls short of this. 

 It is a common enough call and every sportsman must get to know 

 it if he does much snipe-shooting as the birds repeatedly call up to 

 9 or 10 a.m. in the cold weather and again commence calling in 

 the evening a hour before sunset. 



There is, I think, little doubt, but that, like the bustard- 

 quails, the female Painted Snipe is polyandrous, and that like the 

 bustard-quails also, it falls to the lot of her many husbands to 

 hatch and rear the young. There are many points about their 

 habits which have led me to this belief. Eeference has already 

 been made to the parties, or flocks, of these birds which certain 

 observers have recorded as having seen. Now in every case in 

 which such records have been made (Butler who recorded female 

 flocks afterwards corrected his statement) the person recording it 

 has stated that these parties consisted entirely of males, that is to 

 say, of birds in the male plumage. Hume says that the larger of 

 such flocks as he has seen have appeared to him to consist of two 

 or more families of parents and young, but again it will be noticed 

 that he makes no mention of any bird in the female garb and 

 indeed infers, by the context, that they were all in the male 

 plumage. It appears therefore that these parties consist of one 

 "-or more adult cocks with their young and the only inference we 

 can draw from this is that the cocks are left to look after the 

 nestlings and bring them up. 



As regards the hatching of the eggs, all I can say at present is 

 that every bird that I have shot off the nest, or have had sent me 

 as being trapped or shot off the nest, has been a male. Hume 

 writes on this point " in no less than three cases in which old 

 birds have to my knowledge been captured on the eggs, such old 

 birds have proved to be males.'' 



Against this theory is Oapt. E. A. Butler's experience which 



