1907.] "bleating" OP THE SXIPE. 33 



air, somewhat like water pouring in the distance, gradually 

 becoming higher and higher, and more shai-ply falling on the ear. 

 The bird falls like an arrow, bnt when some fathoms from the 

 tops of the trees it suddenly stops in the air and at the same 

 moment uttering ' chic-ka-chee,' flies on again. After making 

 some rounds in the air the bird silently or with the same sound 

 ' zswi, zwsi,' goes higher and higher in the air and recommences 

 the same perfoimance." 



Gallinago stenura (text-fig, 8, 0). — The Pin-tailed Snipe of 

 India breeds in East Siberia, and possesses the greatest number of 

 tail-feathers of the genus — 26-28, of which the outer eight or nine 

 are attenuated. The outer ones are so much attenuated that they 

 actually do resemble pins. The outer feather measures -jg- inch 

 in diameter, the eighth ^ inch. 



The outer web resembles that in G. megala in j^ossessing fully 

 derelojjed radii ; the numbei- of the hamuli in the first pair is 5, in 

 the eighth pair 4. The rami are short and thick. These feathers 

 produce no sound on experiment. The passage from Swinhoe on 

 Formosan Ornithology, 'Ibis,' 1863, p. 415, is the quotation from 

 Taczanowski which I have just given and refers to the preceding 

 species. 



Mr. Buturlin writes of this species on the Kolyma : — " It 

 was only one day, 25th June, 1905, that I could observe its 

 breeding habits. ... I watched it during two or three hours 

 with strong binoculars at a distance sometimes of not more than 

 200 yards. ... It flew about uttering a high, loud, somewhat 

 harsh note, not clear enough to be styled a whistle, like ' psait, 

 psait, psait,' and seemingly produced not by some 7nechanical 

 means, but by its voice. Fi'om time to time (but not so often as 

 our Common Snipe) the bird makes head foremost a dive in the 

 air, just as our Common Snipe, but the descent is in time and 

 distance quite twice as long as in the common species. When 

 falling through the air the bird repeats its note more and more 

 swiftly. . . . At the lowest point of its descent, the bird holds the 

 wings high over its back, just like a swiftly descending pigeon or 

 duck, and then ascends several feet without evident motion of its 

 wings. I could not see any opening or spreading out of its tail, 

 when swooping downwards." 



John Hancock, writing in his ' Birds of Northumberland and 

 Durham,' found great difliculty in accepting the tail theory, 

 because of the diversity in structure of the tail-feathers to be met 

 with in this genus, especially the feathers of G. stenura, which, he 

 says, are considered to be musical insti-uments. Thus he raises 

 a veiy reasonable objection, which I shall here quote : — " Other 

 species have the same almost webless feathei's at the sides of the 

 tail, varying only in number. Here then we see a species in 

 which the so-called sonorous or ' musical ' feathers do not possess 

 the structure, firmness of web, and length of rays, which appear 

 to be mainly relied on as the sovmd-producers ; though the 

 I'igidity and form of the shaft are in some way or other apparently 



Proc. Zool. See— 1907, No. III. 3 



