CHARADRIIDAE 29 1 



flight on rising, remain to be mentioned, while the alternate zig- 

 zag rise and fall of the bird when circling in the air near its 

 nest, with the curious drumming or bleating noise produced at 

 each descent must not be omitted. The method of production of 

 this sound is still uncertain, but is either due to the vibration 

 of the wings, or more probably to that of the webs of the outer 

 rectrices. The slight nest is formed in a tuft of herbage in some 

 marshy place, the four pointed eggs being olive, with spots and 

 oblique blotches of brown. Snipe occasionally perch on trees or 

 squat upon the ground until touched.* The very similar G. delicata 

 (ivilsoni), breeding northwards from the northern United States, 

 and migrating to northern South America, has usually sixteen 

 rectrices, as have the six following species. G. major, the Double 

 or Solitary Snipe, nests as far south in Europe as Holland and 

 Poland, and reaches the Yenesei ; it is known from the Tian-Shan 

 Mountains, Turkestan, and Persia, and winters even in Natal and 

 Damara-Land, visiting Britain annually on passage. It rises 

 silently and heavily when flushed, is to some extent nocturnal, 

 and drums when on the ground. The three outer tail-feathers 

 are chiefly white.^ G. frenata, ranging from Argentina and Tara- 

 paca to Venezviela and G-uiana ; G. nohilis of Colombia and Ecuador, 

 G. paragucdae, reaching from Amazonia and Bolivia to the Ealk- 

 lands, G. macrodactyla (hernieri) of Madagascar, and G. aequa- 

 torialis (nigripennis), of the Ethiopian Eegion generally, conclude 

 this section of the genus. G. australis is similar to our Snipe, 

 but larger ; it breeds in Japan, and migrates through Formosa to 

 Australia; G. nemoricola, the Wood -Snipe of the hills of India 

 and Burma, has the lower parts distinctly barred ; G. solitaria, 

 breeding at considerable elevations from Turkestan to Assam and 

 Japan, and wintering in those countries and China, exhibits dis- 

 tinct white streaks above. In the three last-named species the 

 rectrices number about eighteen, in the next six they may be as 

 few as foiu-teen. South America furnishes five forms somewhat like 

 Woodcocks in their habits and eggs, namely, G. gigantea of Brazil 

 and Paraguay, the largest of the Snipes; G. undulata of Guiana; G. 

 jamesoni, ranging from Colombia to Bolivia ; G. imperialis of the 

 former country ; and G. stricldandi of Chili and Patagonia. All 

 these recall the Common Snipe by their coloration, as does the 

 small short-winged G. micklandica, which, with its different races, 

 I For habits, see Dresser, Birds of Europe, vii. 1871-1881, pp. 635-637- 



