336 THE EASTERN SOLITARY SNIPE. 
laid simply in a shallow, circular depression in deep, spongy 
club moss, apparently merely hollowed by the pressure of the 
bird’s body. 
I have never myself seen a nest, but have this information 
from natives who have repeatedly seen the eggs, always at 
places high up on snow-capped ranges, and on snow-fed streams. 
I have never succeeded in securing, or even getting sight of, 
the eggs though on one occasion several (subsequently unfortu- 
nately destroyed,) were collected for me in Cashmere, 
THE SEXES do not, judged by my measurements, appear to 
differ appreciably in size, but the three largest birds measured 
were females, and the two smallest males, so that probably, age 
for age, if one could make sure of this, the females are the 
largest. The difference, however, is very small, and in twenty 
out of twenty-five specimens, males and females are equally 
larger and smaller than others of the opposite sex, so that I 
see no use in separating the dimensions. 
Length, 12°0 to 12°06; expanse, 10°75 to 21:92; winewoms 
to 6:3; tail from vent, 3°1 te 3°45; tarsus, 1:25 to Jicc7e oun 
from gape, 2°52 to 2°87, (no male above 2°77); weight, 5 ozs. 
to 8 ozs. Several young birds weighed less, one only 4°25 ozs. 
The irides are dark brown ; the legs and feet in adults are 
dull olive or yellowish green, or greenish or dull pale yellow— 
in young birds ashy, with a greenish tinge ; the claws black or 
brownish black; the terminal one-third of the bill is black 
or brownish black; the basal portions generally yellowish 
brown, bluish along commissure ; but the upper mandible often 
has a greenish ashy or plumbeous, or vinous; or fleshy tinge, 
and sometimes is plumbeous everywhere except at the dark tip 
THE PLATE is really a singularly good and faithful picture of 
the specimens figured, though how the bird in the foreground 
has succeeded in getting both its legs on the off side, no one 
who has not mastered space of four dimensions, can hope to 
explain. 
But this species is very variable. In many specimens, per- 
haps the majority, the white margins to the scapulars are 
broader and more strongly marked, (in some very much so) 
than in the plate; often there is much more white spotting 
or speckling on the wing. The terminal portions of the 
tertiaries are often very distinctly barred with white; often 
there is a great deal of pure white dotted about the sides 
of the head and upper neck. The second, lower, face band, 
barely indicated in the plate, and in most specimens, is in 
a few very strongly marked. In some birds the brown is 
darker and descends much lower on the breast than in 
others, and this brown is much more uniform in some, and 
