THE PINTAIL SNIPE; 357 
front of the throat and upper breast are fawn coloured, blur- 
red with numerous ill-defined spots and streaks of dark 
brown, and others in which the upper breast is strongly and 
distinctly, though rather irregularly, darred. Many birds have 
less barring even on the flank than is shown in the plate; 
in others it is far more profuse, narrower, and closer set. 
Most specimens have two dark streaks down the throat, one 
starting from either base of the lower mandible, which is 
about in the same line as the front of the eye; sometimes 
these are only indicated and occasionally entirely wanting. 
The upper surfaces differ widely—some are altogether brighter, 
the black more intense, the markings on the scapulars are 
more intense rusty, their pale margins a brighter and richer 
buff. In some few birds, almost exclusively Andaman speci- 
mens, the back and wing markings are almost as white as 
in the plate ; but, asa rule, they vary from pale fawny white 
to rufous buff. 
The plate of the wing-lining and tail of this species (wzde 
plate, ante, facing page 332,) is on the whole very fair; but asa 
rule the lower tail-coverts, &c., are a paler and more fawny 
buff than in the specimen figured. 
I cannot say that Mr. Neale’s plates will help any one 
materially in distinguishing between the Pintail and Fantail, but 
still there ought to be no difficulty in discriminating them. 
In the first place there is the difference in the shape of the 
bill (vide ante, p. 346) by which you can distinguish the two, even 
when served up dressed for dinner. 
Then there is the difference in the barring of the under 
surface of the wing. In the Pintail the axillaries and the entire 
wing-lining, except the lower greater coverts, are invariably 
strongly and distinctly barred with blackish brown. This, accord- 
ing to my experience, is zever the case in the Common Snipe. 
In many specimens of this latter there is no barring at all, 
properly speaking, on the lower surface cf the wing; but even 
where the axillaries and some of the coverts are strongly barred, 
the median secondary lower coverts are always unbarred, forming 
a white unbarred patch in the centre of the upper portion of the 
lower surface of the closed wing. 
Then there is the difference in the tail feathers. These, in the 
Common Snipe, are fourteen, occasionally sixteen, very rarely 
twelve in number—all ordinary shaped and soft. In the Pintail 
there are only ten such feathers, but on either side of these 
ten, are from five to nine, very narrow, rather rigid, feathers, 
making up a total of from twenty to twenty-eight feathers. There 
are not always the same number of these on each side. I have 
often found, in apparently uninjured tails, one more on one 
side than another. These narrow feathers are generally com- 
pletely hidden by the lower tail-coverts; occasionally I have 
found them entirely wanting, and I have repeatedly seen them 
