KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND. 52. N:o |7. 43 
Variants. — In the main the winter plumage is obtained. 'The July specimens, 
however, partly show summer plumage, the upper chest mottled with chestnut and 
dark brown, the latter forming dark centres or shaft-streaks. 'The back has many 
dark brown feathers and rufous margins to the feathers. Forehead spotted with 
darkbrown. The specimen from Sept. has a more pronounced winter plumage with 
very little rufous on the breast, a few dark brown feathers on the back and fore- 
head white. 
Moult. — All the specimens moult on the backpart where old worn feathers 
are left, and other new ones grow out, ashy brown in colour. The specimen from 
Freemantle (Sept.) has a very much worn dress; neither this nor the other spec. 
drop wing- or tail-feathers. 'The breast, too, has white feathers growing out. 
Moulting-season. — There seems to be a moult in July—Sept.; it thus takes 
place, or begins just before the migration. 
Ecological. — The July specimens seem to have migrated very early from 
the Northern hemisphere. They were shot among about two hundred birds at Beagle bay. 
Gallinago megala SwINB. 
Math. handl. n:r 185 b). J ad. Nooncanbah ?5/:2 1910. 
Plumage. — The specimen has 20 tail-feathers. Is in winter plumage. Two 
blackish brown bands on the fore neck and a dusky brown band across the ear- 
coverts. Throat whitish. Under breast and abdomen white, the flanks sandy buff 
and barred. 
Ecological. — This specimen was the only one found. The species has not been 
met with in Australia before. As a breeding-bird it belongs to the Eastern parts of 
Siberia and the farthest south it has formerly been known to migrate is the Moluccas 
and Borneo. This habitat thus removes the route of migration a good bit south of 
the Equator to Fitzroy river in Kimberley, N. W. A. 
The snipes seem to offer an interesting field for studies concerning migration. 
A great part of the species is limited to, one endemic in, certain tropical regions and 
islands (N. Guinea). These ones apparently do not migrate, while the species in 
North Siberia have a very long migration route. American species have perhaps a 
shorter one. About one species the Cat. of birds says that it breeds in China, but 
during the winter lives in some river-valleys of the Himalaya mountains. (The cli- 
mate has made the migration necessary.) Gallinago is probably originally a genus, 
suited to warmer regions, and a contingent went up to the North with the change 
of the climate during the glacial epoch, thus becoming migratory birds. 
Fam. Glareolide. 
Glareola orientalis LEACH. 
Math. handl. n:r 189. 4 929 ad., 2 SS ad. Nooncanbah, Fitzroy ?/2 1911, moulting mor ore less (throat 
and breast), in one specimen moult complete. 
