1907.] "bLEATIXG" OF THE SNIPE. 29 



the literature. Contrary to what one would exjDect from its 

 peculiar Rail-like appearance, the tail-feathers produce a very 

 distinct and pleasing sound of a high-pitched character, some- 

 what resembling that of cei-tain Asiatic species. 



Gallinago oiquatorialis {nigripeunis) is an inhabitant of Central 

 Africa, south and east of the great desert. It possesses 14 tail- 

 feathers, of which the outer four ai-e attenuated, and are less than 

 1 inch in diameter ; they are pure white. This form is nearlj^ allied 

 to the Common Snipe. I have been quite unable to procure either 

 any feathers or a skin of this species. 



Its habits are desci-ibed in Reichenow's ' Yogel Afrikas,'* Band i. 

 p. 236 : — " This bird is called Spook Yogel by the Boers, on account 

 of its drumming cry, which the bird makes in the morning and 

 evening during its flight." 



Gallinago gallinula. — The Jack Snipe has 12 tail-feathers, of 

 which the outer thi-ee ai-e markedly shorter than the three central 

 ones (text-fig. 6, C). 



Their texture is soft and the rami are easily separated, in 

 contradistinction to those of the species we have already con- 

 sidered. On experiment these feathers produced no sound at all. 



The structui'e of the outer web of the outer feathers more 

 nearly apj^roaches that of the inner — a marked difference to that 

 found in the other feathers we have been considering ; that is, the 

 rami of the outer web are provided with distal and proximal rows 

 of radii and thus adhere together. The distal radii are pi-ovided 

 with 4 hamuli both in the outer and inner webs. 



The breeding-habits of this species were desci-ibed oiiginally by 

 Wolley in Hewitson's ' Eggs of British Birds,' vol. ii. p. 356 : — 

 " It was on the 17th June, 1853, in the great marsh of Muonio- 

 niska (Finland), that I first heard the Jack Snipe, though at that 

 time I could not guess what it was — an extraordinary sound, unlike 

 anything I had heard before ; I could not tell from which direction 

 it came, and it filled me with a curious surpi-ise. My Finnish 

 interpreter thought it was a Capercally, and at that time I could 

 not contradict him. I know not better to describe the noise than 

 by likening it to the cantering of a horse in the distance, over a 

 hard hollow road, it came in fours with a cadence, a clear yet 

 hollow sound : it was not long afterwards that I ascertained the 

 remarkable hammering noise in the air was made by the Jack 

 Snipe." 



Mr. S. A. Buturlin, in sending me a specimen of this species, 

 Avith characteristic kindness wiites the following notes of its habits 

 as observed on the Kolyma Delta : — " Its drumming is exceedingly 

 like the noise of a cantering horse on a hard road, as so Avell 

 described by one of the best field-observers — the late John Wolley. 

 I heard it every day in the summer of 1905, when on the 

 Kolyma. The bird usually flies so high, that even with the aid 

 of the midnight sun and good Zeiss binoculars it is often quite 



