THE PAINTED SNIPE, — 389 
like young Pheasants. The bill is also quite short at that 
age.” 
I have already mentioned that there is every probability 
that the female only calls; the female, as will be seen further 
on, is larger and handsomer than the male; the young of doth 
sexes wear the plumage, not of the female, but of the adult 
male; and in yet one other point does the case of the Painted 
Snipe resemble that of the Bustard Quails, for in no less than 
three cases in which old birds have, to my knowledge, been 
captured on the eggs, such old birds have proved to be males. 
I do not know that the female never sits; that is a point 
for future careful investigation. All I know is, that in the only 
cases in which I have been able to test it, it has been the 
males who were incubating, 
The eggs of this species, almost invariably, I believe, four in 
number, are of the same type, so far as shape is concerned, as 
those of the Common Snipe ; but they are, asarule, not quite so 
pinched out towards the small end as those of that species. 
Compared with those of the true Snipe they are very small ; 
the Painted Snipe weighs from two to fully three times what the 
Jack Snipe does; but the cubic contents of the eggs of the 
former are less than four-fifths of those of the latter. 
In colour and markings the egg has a somewhat Plover- 
like appearance, but is more glossy. 
The shell, very hard and of a very close and compact texture, 
has generally a very appreciable, and occasionally a great deal 
of gloss. The ground colour is typically a yellowish stone or 
cafe au lait colour, but in some has astrong olive tinge, and in 
some again is a very pale, clear, greenish creamy, or even pale 
greenish drab, The markings consist, as a rule, of a few very large 
and very irregular-shaped blotches, intermingled with numbers 
of smaller blotches and irregular streaks, spots and occasionally 
lines, but sometimes a// the markings on the egg are comparative- 
fy small. Some show a very conspicuous broad confluent zone 
round one end; but the markings are extremely variable in 
size, shape and arrangement, and all one can say is, that they 
generally between them cover nearly half the surface of the 
egg. The markings are intense blackish brown, appearing quite 
black in some spots, where the colour is most intense, but paling 
off into sepia in some few sub-surface-looking spots and clouds. 
In some eggs there are none of these secondary markings, and 
in none are they very numerous or conspicuous. Occasionally 
some of the markings verge upon a raw sienna brown. In 
length the eggs vary from 1'29 to 1°49, and in breadth from 
0°89 to 1°05, but the average of 40 eggs is 1°39 by 0°99. 
IN THIS species the females are very decidedly larger than 
the males, birds of the same age of course being compared, 
