PAINTED SNIPE 
lOI 
In size and shape the Painted Snipe bears some 
resemblance to the Common Snipe, but has a shorter 
bill, and the plumage is richly mottled with divers 
shades of grey and brown, the feathers being highly 
esteemed for use in the manufacture of artificial 
flies, though the lustrous sheen of the living bird 
quickly fades after death. A structural peculiarity 
of this species is a remarkably long and convoluted 
windpipe. In flight the bird's rounded wings give 
it much less pace and render it consequently easier 
to shoot than the ordinary Snipe. There is a common 
idea that if a dead Painted Snipe is put with other 
game it causes the rest rapidly to decompose. I 
cannot vouch for its justification. 
SOUTHERN STONE PLOVER OR CURLEW 
Burhinus magnirostris magnirostris 
The strictly correct English name for the Curlew is 
the Southern Stone Plover ; which I do not propose 
to avail myself of, as it is too cumbersome ever to 
stand any chance of popular adoption, while the name 
Curlew is in universal use. 
It is a bird which is far more plentiful on the north 
of the Dividing Range than on the south, where its 
habitat becomes yearly more constricted as the 
firewood requirements of the cities clear the country- 
side of its primeval woods. Well within my own 
memory it was a common species in the bush on 
