THE COMMON OR FANTAIL SNIPE. 371 
As mentioned when treating of the Pintail, the Fantail has 
fourteen to sixteen tail feathers, and occasionally only twelve. At 
home the sixteen tail feathers appear to be uncommon, but here 
they arecommon enough. Kaup elevated the birds possessing six- 
teen rectrices to the dignity of a distinct species; but the birds 
are identical, and in this Snipe group the number of the tail 
feathers is variable in every species with which I am at all well 
acquainted. 
I have already, in the preceding article, fully discussed the 
differences between the Fantail and Pintail, but there is one point 
that I have neglected to notice, and that is that, age for age 
and sex for sex, the present species has an appreciably longer 
bill. This will appear clearly if we contrast the dimensions 
already given, the results of careful measurements of over 350 
birds :— 
Males. Females. 
Length of bill) FANTAIL So 9°29) (KO) 2%) sree 2e5 LO) 250 
from gape. § PINTAIL ian -2eL2 Ore: 5 se 253 ontol 2502. 
No doubt a large old female Pintail has a bill longer than most 
male and a good many young female Fantails ; but birds of 
the same sex and age being compared, the bills of the Fantails 
are invariably the longest. 
ALTHOUGH THERE is no record of the fact, it seems highly 
probable that the European Great or Solitary Snipe (Gallinago 
major), which certainly occurs in Persia, will also prove to occur 
in Sind, the Western Punjab, Afghanistan, and Khelat. Indeed 
I have heard tales of huge Snipe being shot in these parts, 
which I am inclined to suspect may refer to this species. 
Though much larger than the Common Snipe, weighing from 
7 to Q ozs., or even more, the bill is a trifle shorter and slenderer 
than inthe Common Snipe, and not spatulate, but more like that 
of the Pintails. ‘The bird is a Fantail, like the Common Snipe, 
not a Pintail; but it has the axillaries very broadly and 
regularly barred black and white, as in the Pintail only more 
broadly. 
The upper plumage is very similar to that of the Common 
Snipe; but all the wing-coverts, especially the primary greater 
coverts, are much more conspicuously tipped with pure white, 
and the whole of the front and sides of the neck and entire 
breast are very distinctly spotted with dark brown, not blurred 
and clouded, as in the Common Snipe. The spots on the 
breast moreover are very decidedly sagittate or triangular. 
In the fresh bird the weight would generally suffice for the 
immediate identification of the species ; but it may be well to 
add that the tail in all that I have examined had sixteen feathers 
(though this number probably varies) with the three outer tail 
feathers on either side mostly pure white aud unbarred. 
