THE GAME BIRDS, OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 925 



appears to be that both birds take part in incubation. He says in 

 describing the nidification, that " the old birds are almost always 

 near the nest" and all through this note he uses the plural 

 number for the parents although he does not definitely say that he 

 has ever shot a female off the nest, though in one paragraph he 

 speaks of the bird as a female. The conclusion I have arrived at 

 that the male alone carries out the duties of incubation has been 

 further corroborated by other observers and sportsmen, some of 

 whom did not even know that the more gaudy bird of the two 

 was the female, and had, until they were told this, stoutly 

 asserted that the female always sat on the nest and the male 

 never. The fact that the female of the two sexes is provided with 

 the more powerful voice apparatus and does the calling, to which 

 it must be presumed the male replies in person, certainly looks as 

 if she were the dominant factor in their matrimonial arrangements. 



Yet again we find that the breeding season of the Painted Snipe 

 extends practically the whole year round, ceasing in different 

 localities only when the state of the country renders the food 

 supply precarious, and when the scanty meals and constant work 

 necessitated to obtain even these suffice to quell for the time 

 being all desires to nest. Now this continuous laying of eggs by 

 the female would prove far too great a strain on any bird's 

 constitution if the time between the laying of each clutch of eggs 

 was taken up in hatching them and then rearing the young but, 

 given this time in which to recuperate, each female might well 

 lay four or even more clutches in the year. Doubtless, too, 

 sportsmen have noticed that they kill two or three adult males to 

 every adult female and this fact, that the males should be far 

 more numerous than the female, is what is to be expected in a 

 polyandrous species. 



There is also some proof that the females fight for the possession 

 of the males for the Cachar Mahomedan Shikaries, who reverse 

 the sexes, all say that the males are great fighters and constantly 

 fight over the females. 



Nidification. — The breeding season of the Painted Snipe begins 

 on the 1st of January and ends on the 31st December, being shorten- 

 ed, as already mentioned, merely by local limitations, such as failure 



