BY COLONEL W. V. LEGGB, R.A., ETC. 93 



I have seen killed in the south of the island up to the present 

 time are of the larger species, known as the Swamp Quail, and 

 they have been in all probability shot in damp, rushy locali- 

 ties ; and those I have seen in the Longford district on similar 

 tracts of land have been the same. The smaller Brown Quail 

 is usually found in fern brakes, and grassy, open bush-land. 



44. Htpotcenidia pectoralis, Guvier. 



A Eail answering to this species is stated by Signer Ber- 

 nacchi to be found on the lagoons at the " Neck," and Mr. 

 Morton observed it in the same locality. 



Very little appears to be known of the distribution of the 

 rails and water crakes in Tasmania, for their skulking habits 

 render them difficult of detection so far as the casual observer 

 is concerned, and it is only those who lay themselves out for 

 systematically collecting birds, who succeed in finding them. 



GEALLiE. 



45. Gallinago Australis, Latham. 



The Australian snipe is found in suitable localities on the 

 island during the season of its visitation to Tasmania (B). 



It is a singular fact that the snipe is decreasing in numbers 

 in Tasmania; the country is doubtless not as suited to its 

 habits as in former years, when swamps and favourite marshy 

 feeding grounds were in their primeval state ; but there are 

 many tracts of land fit at the present time to hold numbers of 

 snipe, and to which one would think that they would stray on 

 their arrival. Nevertheless they fail to appear in them, and the 

 common lament of the sportsmen is that the snipe are getting 

 scarce. 



It is possible that the partial spoliation of their feeding 

 grounds all along the line of their migration on the East 

 Coast of Australia, may tend to divert the "stream " from its 

 original course, and Tasmania, lying at the end of that course, 

 would naturally suffer. The breeding grounds of the species, 

 as at present known, are the islands of Japan, and its migratory 

 course is past the Coast of China and the Phillippine Islands to 

 Australia, and thence down to Tasmania, a distance of 5,000 

 miles. It is no wonaer, therefore, that any change in the 

 features of the country which forms the extreme limit of its 

 wanderings should tend to make it stop short of it, and 

 perhaps content itself by seeking new feeding grounds en route. 



The snipe procured by Grould at Port Essington, and which 

 he alludes to as being smaller than the Tasmanian bird, with 

 eighteen tail feathers and the four lateral ones on each side 

 attenuated appears to be the Chinese snipe, 8. Megala, which 

 breeds during the northern summer in S.E. Siberia, and 

 winters in the Malay Archipelago (Celebes and other islands), 



