804 RHYXCHJEA CAPEXSIS. 



The Painted Snipe feeds much on very small Mollusca. I once found a number of good-sized univalve 

 shells in the stomach of an individual -which I shot in a salt marsh; and on other occasions I have detected 

 minute snails in its gizzard. Like the true Snipes, T imagine that it searches for its food to a great extent 

 at night, lying quiet in the daytime. Mr. Ball remarks that he has frequently flushed them from under the 

 " shelter of Tamarix bushes in the beds of rivers." In Formosa and China Swinhoe seems to have observed this 

 bird chiefly in marshy places ; and we learn but little from his notes concerning its economy, except that he 

 found its food to consist of Crustacea. 



That exceedingly observant naturalist, Von Heuglin, however, appears to have closely investigated its 

 habits while he was in Northern Africa ; and the result of his observations tends to show its affinities with the 

 last family of birds. He remarks that in Lower Egypt, though it is common, it is not often seen, on account 

 of its nocturnal habits and propensity for concealing itself; it there affects the thickest sedge, long grass, rice- 

 fields, the borders of lagoons, small ponds, brooks, and the edges of muddy overgrown dykes. Like the Rails, 

 to which he observes it bears a resemblance in its actions, it is with difficulty flushed during the heat of the 

 day, and can be more easily found on moonlight nights, or with the help of a pointer, when it will allow 

 itself to betaken by hand. If surprised in an open spot, it escapes into the nearest thicket, and there remains 

 motionless. Its flight is likened to that of the Land-Rail as being more laboured and fluttering, and suddenly 

 terminated after from 10 to 20 paces by the bird dropping into the grass, giving one the impression that it 

 had suddenly lost the power of flight. 



It is, in general, entirely silent. I have never once heard it give vent to a note on being flushed ; Brehm, 

 however, likens its voice in the spring to a rather loud dissyllabic cry resembling naeki, naeki. 



I find the following note, contributed some years ago to ' Nests and Eggs ' (/. c), on a nestling which I 

 had in my possession at Galle, and which was very quaint in its actions : — " It lived but two days, and was 

 confined in my back yard, where it used to run about, hiding behind tubs, chatties, and such articles; when 

 tired, it used to rest its head by placing the point of its bill on the ground, after the manner of the Apteryx ; 

 when pursued it would spread out its wings and squat on the ground, and then run a little distance, crouching 

 down again." Blyth remarks that the young " with feathers half-grown spread the wings and tail, displaying 

 their beautiful markings, and try to look fierce at the beholder." He has likewise noticed that when surprised 

 the adult " has the habit of spreading out its w'ings and tail, and so forming a sort of radiated disk, which 

 shows off its spotted markings, menacing the while with a hissing sound and contracted neck, and then 

 suddenly darting off." 



Nidification. — The Painted Snipe either has two broods in the year, or else it breeds indiscriminately at 

 all seasons. It may be said, however, as a rule, that more nests are found, young captured, and eggs taken 

 from dead birds between November and May than at the opposite season of the year. I have seen an egg 

 taken from a specimen at Galle in March, young captured at AVackwella in September, and know that nestlings 

 have been seen in May at Oodogamma. In the Colombo district eggs have been procured in April, and young 

 found by Mr. MacVicar in February. Mr. Holdsworth mentions the fact of a wounded bird laying an egg 

 in a basket in which it was confined on the 31st December ; but at this time of the year I have killed birds in 

 the north of Ceylon which showed no signs of breeding. 



Layard states that the season of nidification is from May till July ; but this observation is perhaps based 

 upon a single occurrence. I myself shot a female which had evidently risen from the nest, in July, in the 

 Hambantota district ; but I do not think, as I have just remarked, that as many birds lay then as during 

 the cooler months. The nest is placed upon the bund of a paddy-field or in swamp-grass and rushes, and is 

 made of grass and rush-blades. Layard says it consists of a slight depression in the soil, lined with a few tufts 

 of grass. I have never seen one myself ; but as regards its shape and size I find that Mr. Hume describes 

 one which Mr. A. J. Rainey sent him from Khalispoor, in Jessore, as a large circular pad of mingled coarse 

 and fine rice-straw, some G inches diameter and about 1'75 in thickness, and with a central depression of 

 about f inch in depth. The number of eggs laid in Ceylon seems usually to be four. They are of a beautiful 

 stone-yellow ground, very boldly marked with widely-separated blotches or clouds of brownish black or very 

 deep sepia, beneath which lie bluish-grey and light-brown blots in some eggs, while others are streaked with 

 black lines among the clouds. Some eggs are chiefly marked at the large end, while others have the blotches 



