BY E. BLYTH. 
“ They are solitary, lying very close, and like the little fluttering 
Jack Snipe, must be kicked up. Their flight is heavy, short, and 
low to the ground — more a skim than a fly ; they come in about 
November, and frequent rushes and reedy spots, and are not so 
much found in the paddy Kkets as the true Snipe. Nevertheless 
they count, and somehow most sportsmen’s bags (about this time) 
hold them after an afternoon’s shooting.” Most sportsmen in India 
demur, however, to the Painted Snipe counting as game ; and with 
regard to its flight, we have often heard it compared to that of a 
huge moth ! 
III. — METOPIDIUS INDICUS. 
H YDROPH ASI ANUS SINENSIS. 
Plate LXXXIX. 
4 . 5 . 
The Palamcdeadce , to which the Jacanas strictly appertain, com- 
pose a remarkable and well distinguished family of birds, which 
bears no particular affinity to the Rallidce , where the species have 
been often referred. Neither the external characters of the birds, 
when viewed with the requisite attention, nor the structure of the 
skeleton, or of the soft parts, nor the gait and carriage when alive, 
nor the shape and colouring of the eggs, nor the plumage of the 
chick, exhibit a token of affinity between these families. Two 
species are common in South-eastern Asia and its Islands,* which 
are rightly placed in distinct generic divisions, according to the 
general analogies of modern classification; and besides their ex- 
ternal distinctions, which need not be here more than referred to, 
it is remarkable, that while Metopidius indicus moults its plumage 
but once in the year, retaining the same adult garb at all seasons, 
Hydrophasianus sinensis is very different in its summer and winter 
dresses, the latter nearly resembling that of the young, except in 
the development of a broad black pectoral band, continuous with 
* A second Metopidm » inhabits New Guinea and Northern Australia; the Parra 
gallinacea, Temminck ; Gould’s Birds of Australia, vol. vi. pi. 75. 
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