APPENDIX. 437 
this again, the rest of the cheeks, as well as the chin and throat, are dull white. The 
neck all round is grey brown, freckled with yellowish white. 
The interscapulary region, scapulars, tertiaries, upper tail-coverts, back and rump 
except the central portions of the two latter, are a dull, pale, brownish yellow or dull 
buff, freckled and  obsoletely vermicellated with darkish brown. The central 
portions of the back and rump are dark brown, narrowly and imperfectly barred with 
dull buff. The tail isa dull rather pale brown, earthy in places and in places with a 
rusty tinge. The wings, a grey brown; primaries and their greater coverts plain ; 
the rest more or less freckled towards the tips of the feathers with dull buff. 
On the breast and the rest of the lower parts the basal portions of the feathers are 
brown, and the tips dull brownish yellow on the breast, passing to buffy white lower 
down ; there is a little nearly pure white about the vent. The brown bases show 
through more or less everywhere, least on the upper breast,'most on the lower abdomen. 
The wing-lining is mingled French grey and white ; the axillaries are pure white. 
Captain Elwes informed me that he once received a skin, which he had good grounds 
for believing came from the Malay Peninsula, and which he had come to the con- 
clusion belonged to this present species. This, guantwm valeat; possibly his skin 
may have first come from elsewhere to Singapore, or may belong to some other 
species of the genus of which there are several. Amongst these are £. moccoa, Smith, 
of Southern Africa, (the female of which much resembles that of our bird,) 
£. australis of Western Australia, and 2, rubida, ferruginea and dominica from 
America. 
THE COMMON SNIPE. (Vol. IIL, pp. 359, e seg.)— 
Since my remarks (p. 368) on the manner in which the drumming sound is 
produced were printed, the following explanation of the matter (entirely confirm- 
ing my view) by Captain Legge has appeared in ‘‘ The Birds of Ceylon :—” 
‘It is a pity that Mr. Dresser adopts Herr Meves’s tail theory of the Snipe’s 
drumming after what has been written by Mr. Hancock and others. In my article 
on this species, printed on the 13th January last, and written after I had myself 
carried out the experiments on which Herr Meves’s hypothesis was based, I showed 
that the conditions under which the tail feather is moved with the stick and wire 
on the one hand, and with the caudal vertebrze of the bird on the other, are totally 
different, and that though a noise may be produced like the Snipe’s drumming with 
the one means, it cannot possibly be by the other. With the intention of referring 
again to the matter in the appendix, after I should have had an opportunity of 
observing for myself, I repaired this season to the breeding grounds of the Snipe 
in Mid-Wales, and there had an admirable opportunity of verifying Mr. Han- 
cock’s theory that the sound is chiefly made by the wings ; and I am now perfectly 
satisfied that this is the case, notwithstanding that the tail is spread during the 
performance. I went there, partly convinced in my own mind that the sound was 
a vocal and at the Same time a mechanical one—that is, that it was made in the 
same manner as has been observed in the case of the Great Snipe, with the bill 
and throat ; but it only requires close, very close, observation, and good hearing 
to come to a right conclusion in the matter. The most favourable occasion I had 
for observation was on the evening of the 1oth June, when the same Snipe, having 
young near where I was standing, drummed over my head, flying backwards and 
forward in the manner now to be described, without cessation, fora period of fifty-two 
minutes, timed by my watch? It wasa calm evening onan immense bog, with the 
sun gradually sinking behind the wild surrounding hills ; and, as I stood, binoculars in 
hand, and with my wire and tail-feather for purposes of comparison of sound, intently 
watching the remarkable performance of the interesting bird, the time flew rapidly 
by, and I do not think I ever spent a more pleasant hour in the observation of 
nature. There were other birds drumming all round me, for the evening is ¢he 
time for this performance; but I gave my undivided attention to the one, which I 
had particularly alarmed by my proximity to her young. 
‘* The aerial course taken by the bird was an ellipse, of the average length of a 
quarter of a mile, described over where I stood; but it was sometimes varied by 
her making a figure of ‘'8” above my head, the bird always returning to its 
original starting-point in the air, and again making the same tour. The movement 
for the purpose of drumming was generally performed twice, but sometimes thrice, 
going and coming, making from four to six times in each figure described It flew 
at a height of about 100 yards witha quick and regular movement of the wings, 
