THE GASTERN SOLITARY SulPs. 
Gallinago solitaria, Hodgson, 
ee — ) 
Vernacular Names.—[Bharka (for all Snipes,) Vefa/.] 
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Sy HE Solitary Snipe occurs right through the Hima- 
—im, layas, from Gilgit on the west to Central Bhfitan on 
the east, and probably quite as far east as Sadiya in 
these mountains. 
During the summer it is confined to the higher 
ranges from elevations of 9,000 feet and upwards to 
at least 15,000 feet. In the autumn it descends 
lower, and during the winter is found in most of the lower 
valleys, right down to where these debouch on the plains, and 
in all the Duns, Terais, Bhaburs, and the like that lie about 
the bases of the hills; a few also stragegle into the submontane 
districts, and occasionally far away intothe plains, as when 
Mr. A. Guthrie met with one on the 14th of September 1879 
near Benares. In the central portion of the Empire they do 
not normally get far south of the mountain skirts, nor have 
they ever been observed in any of the hills of Southern or 
Central India; but on the west they have been obtained in the 
neighbourhood of Cabul, and one specimen has been sent me, 
which was shot by Captain Scott of the 4th Sikhs, in December 
1877 as far south as Kelat, (elevation 6,700 feet). On the 
east again they have been procured both in the Garo and Khasi 
Hills, and towards the head of the Assam Valley, Colonel 
Graham tells me that he has seen a few above Dibrugarh. 
Unlike the Wood-Snipe, bare treeless districts are quite as 
attractive as better-wooded regions, and I found them almost 
common on many of the streams in Ladakh, Lahoul and Spiti, 
where the Wood-Snipe is quite unknown. 
In Japan, and according to Pére David in Northern China and 
Mongolia, and Moupin, and according to Prjevalski in South- 
East Mongolia, Northern Tibet, Kansu, and about the Koko-Nor, 
and in the Ussuri country, this species occurs. But then through- 
out Southern and South-Eastern Siberia, certain authorities affirm 
that it is not solztarza that is found, but a certain nearly allied 
species Ayemalzs, of Eversmann, and that Prjevalski’s birds belong 
