506 



SCOLOPAX. 



Diagnosis. 



SCOLOPAX SATURATA. 



HORSFIELD'S WOODCOCK. (Plate XXL) 



Scolopax rectricum apicibus subtus colore argenteo : primariarum pogoniis internis non fasciatis, 

 primariis non attenuatis. 



Variations. Examples from Java appear to be exactly similar to those from New Guinea. 



Synonymy. 



Literature. 



Specific 

 characters. 



Geographi- 

 cal distribu- 

 tion. 



Breeding- 

 range 

 doubtful. 



Scolopax saturata, Horsjield, Trans. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 191 (1821). 



Rusticola javanica, Lesson, Traite d'Orn. p. 555 (1881). 



Scolopax rosenbergi, Schlegel, Nederl. Tljdschr. Dierk. 1869, p. oi. 



Plates. — Schlegel, Handl. Dierk., Aves, pi. vi. fig. 71. 

 Habits. — Horsfield, Trans. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 191. 

 Eggs. — Unknown. 



Horsfield's Woodcock may be distinguished from the Snipes by the transverse 

 markings on its head, and the silvery tips on the under surface of the tail-feathers. It is 

 much smaller than our Woodcock, but not quite so small as the American species. In the 

 pattern of its primaries it is intermediate between them. In our bird both webs are more 

 or less barred, in Horsfield's Woodcock the outer web only, and in the American bird 

 neither web. The shape of the wing is also intermediate ; the first three primaries are 

 nearly equal in length, the second slightly the longest. 



Horsfield's Woodcock was originally described from the island of Java, where it was 

 found at an elevation of 7000 feet, and the type, which was formerly in the India Museum, 

 still exists, though moth-eaten and devoid of feathers, in the British Museum. The Leyden 

 Museum possesses two examples collected by Boie on the same island, and a third example, 

 the type of S. rosenbergi \ from the north-western peninsula of New Guinea. A 

 second example from the same peninsula, collected by Bruijn, is in the collection of 

 Count Turati in Milan (Salvadori, Orn. Papuasia e delle Molucche, iii. p. 235), and a 

 third, obtained by the same collector, is recorded (Guillemard, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1SS5, 

 p. 665). It is not known that any other examples of this rare Woodcock exist. It is 

 impossible to say whether it be a resident in Java and Western New Guinea, and if so 

 probably in the intervening islands, or whether it be only a winter visitor to the Malay 

 Archipelago, breeding northwards in Eastern Thibet or Yunnan. 



1 When Schlegel described it he unfortunately compared it with an example of S. saturata from Java 

 which was moulting its primaries, and had run the gauntlet of nearly forty years' exposure to dust and 

 sunshine on the shelves of the Leyden Museum. The two birds seem to be specifically identical. Both have 

 the richly barred underparts, black and chestnut, except across the middle of the breast, where in both birds 

 the black bars are on a white ground. 



