THE PAINTED SNIPE. 385 
ed me far more of Rails than of Snipe, and certainly alike in all 
their ways, and even in their note, there is much that recalls 
the Rails. 
Their cry, heard only I believe (but am not certain) when they 
are breeding, is a single, low, rather deep note, which Wood- 
Mason calls “a low, regular hoarse, but rich purr,” and Tickell 
describes as “low and mellow, a single soft note frequently 
repeated, kone, kone, kone,” but which, to my ears, most resembles 
the sound produced by blowing into the neck of a phial. I have 
heard no second sound, and thought this was produced by both 
sexes, as two birds are continually heard answering each other ; 
but Mr. Wood-Mason’s investigations have shown that the females 
in this as in the Australian form (though apparently to a much 
less extent) differ from the males in having a more developed 
windpipe, with a large convolution just where it enters the body, 
to which development the peculiar call referred to may be assumed 
to be due. Hence it was probable that the females only would 
utter it, and Mr. Mason states, as a matter of fact, that, amongst 
captive birds while the females continually thus called, the males 
only jerked out a sharp squeak at irregular intervals, and then 
only apparently in answer to the females. 
This squeak of the male I have never heard in the field, but 
the call now proved to be that of the female I have often 
heard, most commonly in the morning, not unfrequently to- 
wards dusk, and occasionally, but rarely, during the day. 
In Southern India the natives call it the “Peacock Snippet,” and 
certainly, when standing at bay, with the breast lowered to the 
ground, the back raised and tail expanded, and the head with up- 
turned bill surrounded by the spread wings brought round so as 
almost to meet in front, they present a very striking and beauti- 
ful picture; and I cannot but believe that, during the nuptial 
season, the birds nautch, as natives assert, in some such position 
opposite each other. 
They certainly move about (and probably feed) much more 
at night than by day. They are very fond apparently of run- 
ning at night, just as Rails do, along the small, turf-clothed ridges 
dividing paddy fields, and numbers are caught in horse-hair nooses 
set along these, together with Porsana fusca and maruetta. 
About their food I regret to say that I can only speak from 
memory. I kept an exact record of the contents of the 
stomachs of over fifty specimens, but this is not forthcoming 
now just when it is required. I remember that insects and 
tiny crustacea and shells, land and water, predominated, and 
that there were also grubs and caterpillars, and some admix- 
ture of vegetable matter ; but I have also an idea that I repeatedly 
noticed grain and seeds of sedges and grass in their crops. Of 
this latter I cannot now be sure, but I find that Hodgson notes 
finding both rice and fragments of mustard seeds in their 
gizzards, so that my remembrance is probably correct. 
ae 
