SCOLOPAX. 



473 



Gulf of Hauraki near Auckland, but I have not been able to find the record. It is 

 probably a mere coincidence that its island life has dwarfed it exactly to the size of a Jack 

 Snipe. In every other respect it is a Serni- Woodcock, and is probably nearest allied to 

 S. stricMandi, though the absence of bars on most of the outer tail-feathers is a character 

 which it shares with S. imperialis. 



* * 



* * Asiatic Snipes. 



SCOLOPAX AUSTRALIS. 



LATHAM'S SNIPE. 



Scolopax rectricibus duodeviginti, quarum non nisi quatuor anguste sunt (minus quam 8 millim.) . Diagnosis. 



No local races of this species are known. 



Variations. 



Scolopax australis, Latham, Index Orn. Suppl. p. lxv (1801). 



Scolopax hardwickii, Gray, Zool. Misc. i. p. 16 (1831). 



Gallinago australis {Lath.), Gray, List Birds Cull. Brit. Mus. iii. p. Ill (1844). 



Synonymy. 



Plates. — Gould, Birds of Australia, vi. pi. 40. 

 Habits. — Gould, Handbook Birds Austr. ii. p. 271. 

 Eggs. — Unknown. 



Literature. 



Latham's Snipe has 18 tail-feathers, of which only two on each side are less than -3 in. 

 in width. No other Snipe agrees with this diagnosis, but as some of the tail-feathers are 

 occasionally missing in birds injured by shot, or procured during the moulting-season, it 

 is advisable to add some further characters. It is a large species, the wing measuring 

 6"5 to 60 inch from the carpal joint. As might be expected in a bird of such an extensive 

 range of migration, its primaries have been lengthened, apparently at the expense of its 

 secondaries, the longest primary-coverts extending considerably beyond the outermost 

 secondaries. The scapulars are broadly margined with buff, and the tibia is bare for some 

 distance above the joint. 



3p 



Specific 

 characters. 



