THE EASTERN SOLITARY SNIPE. 337 
more white spotted in others. There is much more and more 
distinct barring on the sides and flanks in some specimens than 
in others. In one specimen before me only the centre of the 
lower abdomen remains entirely unbarred. Some birds have a 
well-marked broad median white line on the crown; in the 
majority this is barely indicated. Some birds are altogether 
darker, some lighter, some duller and greyer, some brighter and 
more rufous, some show no more white than the plate, many 
have the whole mantle dashed and splashed, and spotted all 
about with white. 
The figure of tail, lower tail-coverts, and wing-lining (see the 
plate at the end of the last article) is very fair ; but the barring 
on the five outer laterals on each side should be more distinct. 
Typically this species has twenty tail feathers—the six outer 
ones on each side stiff, narrow and acuminate, white, closely 
and strongly barred with blackish brown ; the eight central ones, 
of the ordinary shape, black, with a broad, subterminal bright 
chestnut band, and tipped with white preceded by a black line. 
But the tail varies from sixteen feathers, with four pairs of 
stiff laterals, to twenty-four (Jerdon says twenty-eight, but I have 
never found more than twenty-four) with eight such pairs. 
