THE



321



Avicultural Magazine,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



Third Series .— Vol. IV.—No. 11. —All rights reserved. SEPT., 1913.



THE SEED SNIPE.


Thinocorus rumicivorus.


By Hubert D. Astley.


Mr. Goodfellow brought home from Chili, landing' in the first

week of July, some birds which were a puzzle to those who had

never before seen them. Mrs. Johnstone very kindly invited me to

go to Burrswood on the day after their arrival. Incidentally, the

principal interest w T as not birds, but Chinchillas ; which I preferred

infinitely to see in their skins, rather than the latter made into

muffs and boas, etc. As however, they are not birds, I must refrain

from studying them too closely, at any rate in the Magazine;

suffice it to say, they are most fascinating, and a pearly-grey coated

Chinchilla, when tame, would make a charming pet. In a cage near

by, I saw what at first sight looked like larks, but it reminded me of

Lewis Carroll’s line—“ I looked again, and saw it was a hippo¬

potamus ” ! but in this case, when I looked again, I saw a miniature

bustard, of a lark’s dimensions, and yet again, when one’s eyes

examined the wings, they were of the snipe order.


On the following day, I betook myself to Mr. Chubb at the

Natural History Museum (Cromwell Boadh “ Seed Snipe ” he said

at once, and we proceeded to hunt out the skins. Thinocorus

rumicivorus they turned out to be, inhabiting W. Peru, Bolivia,

Chili, Patagonia and Argentina.


Imagine a bird the size of a sky-lark, with upper plumage of

much the same colouring, running and stooping to the ground in a

“larky” fashion, but with yellowish legs and feet small, and



