382 
BIRDS OF BEITISH BUEMAH. 
Bill fleshy brownisli green for two thirds its length from the base^ 
remainder horny brown ; iris very dark brown ; legs and feet brownish 
green. 
Length 10*5 inches^ tail 2*4^ wing 5^, tarsus 1'2, bill from gape 2'3. The 
female is of about the same size. 
The Common Snipe of Europe is fairly abundant throughout Pegu^ 
Arrakan and the northern half of Tenasserim ; further south it becomes 
rare, and in the Malay Peninsula it can be considered only a straggler. 
It inhabits the whole of Europe and a considerable portion of North 
Africa^ and it extends over the whole continent of Asia down to Ceylon on 
the one hand and. to China on the other. It ranges to the Philippine 
Islands_, and must necessarily occur in Siam and Cochin China ; but it has 
not yet been recorded from these countries_, where doubtless it is very 
rare. 
This species and the next are likely to be confounded unless special 
attention is paid to the differences between them. 
The first and most unfailing point of difference is in the tail. In 
G. coelestis the tail is composed of twelve^ fourteen or sixteen ordinary soft 
feathers; in G. stenura there are ten soft feathers and on either side of 
these a number, varying from five to nine, of narrow rigid feathers with 
apparently no webs. These narrow feathers require to be looked for ; they 
do not strike the eye, as they are more or less hidden by the tail-coverts 
and are moreover very close together. A second point of difference lies 
in the coloration of the lower surface of the wing. In the Pintail Snipe 
the axillaries and the under wing-coverts are very distinctly and regularly 
barred with dark brown throughout. In the Common Snipe these same 
parts are indistinctly barred, and there is always a patch on the coverts 
left quite white and unbarred. Mr. Hume points out one or two additional 
differences which it may be well to quote : in the Common Snipe the outer 
web of the first primary is white or nearly so, and the secondaries are 
broadly tipped with white ; in the Pintail the outer web of the first primary 
is of the same colour as the inner, and the secondaries are only margined 
with albescent or brownish white. In the two birds the bills vary in 
shape, that of the Common Snipe being dilated at the tip and furnished 
with very numerous pores, whereas the bill of the Pintail is not dilated at 
the tip and there are comparatively few pores. 
The Common Snipe arrives rather later than the next species, and few 
birds are shot before the end of September. It leaves Burmah about the 
end of March, but it is difficult to state the exact date. 
This Snipe is almost invariably found in swamps and paddy-fields, placesjj 
where the water is shallow and patches of mud show up at frequent inter- 
vals. Fields where the paddy is eight inches or a foot high and the water 
partially dried up, as is the case in October, are favourite Snipe-ground ; 
