382 THE PAINTED SNIPE. 
Mongolia, and breeding at Lake Tsaidamin Nor, which is in 
about the same latitude as Pekin, being 40° North Latitude, 
but it does not go north into South-East Siberia, or the Ussuri 
country, nor he says into Kansu of Western China, nor to the 
Koko Nor in Chinese Tibet. It has not been observed in either 
Eastern or Western Turkestan, or towards the Pamir, or in 
Northern Afghanistan; but Captain Cook, R.E., of the 5th 
Goorkas, shot a specimen in January, in Central Afghanistan, in 
the Kurrum Valley, and Hutton procured it near Kandahar in 
the south. From Beluchistan it has not been recorded, nor 
from any part of Persia, but Antinori gives it from Asia Minor, 
and it occurs throughout the better known portions of Africa, 
including Madagascar, except only in the northern and north- 
western portions lying between Egypt and the mouthof the 
Senegal. Inthe Berlin Museum list it is recorded as coming 
from Arabia also, but v. Heuglin doubts the fact. 
The above review proceeds on the assumption, now generally 
admitted to be correct (though Swinhoe affirmed that the 
African species differed in having the chin bare) that 2. capen- 
sis and R. bengalensis are identical. There is yet another sup- 
posed species, A. australis, certainly very close to our bird, and 
perhaps identical, and if so (which, however, I hardly anti- 
cipate) Australia also must be included in the range of the 
Painted Snipe. 
ALTHOUGH PERMANENT residents of the major portion of the 
Empire, and only regular migrants to the drier, north-western 
regions of India, yet even elsewhere Painted Snipe move 
about a great deal, and, except perhaps in some exceptional 
localities, are rarely to be found in exactly the same places at 
different seasons. 
This follows, however, naturally from the character of the 
localities which they chiefly affect, vzz., moist, but not flooded, 
eround, covered with abundant and thick cover of rush or grass, 
and if interspersed with bushes and thin scrub so much the better.* 
Of course you find them in marshes where there is plenty of 
water lying about, and in flooded land ; but you will always, I 
think, if you look closely, discover that the exact spots whence 
they are actually flushed are in such cases patches slightly 
raised above the general level ; and, though moist, still free from 
water. I once found half a dozen of these birds in a particular 
spot, and saw them there week after week for several weeks. 
A heavy X’mas shower fell, and the next day not a bird was 
to be seen, though their favourite haunt was only about two 
inches under water. Again, later, they (or other birds of this 
species) returned to this same spot as soon as the water had 
* Major C. McInroy too writes :— 
**T have noticed in Mysore that the Painter is exceedingly partial to longish 
grass amongst date trees, where the ground is slightly damp.” 
