SNIPES AND WOODCOCKS. 
Snipes and Woodcocks form a well-differentiated group of Wading birds, 
having very long bills with more or less sensitive tips, short legs, and pointed 
wings — showing a characteristic appearance. On account of this family 
resemblance the group has been ill-treated by the only two systematists who 
have in recent times dealt with this group as a whole. 
Seebohm, in his well-known Geographical Distribution of the Charadriidce^ 
lumped the whole of the species together under the one generic name Scolopax, 
ignoring and belittling aU structural characters, while he did not allow 
the differences apparent in the coloration as much value as he did in 
many other cases. 
He, however, as usual pointed out clearly the distinguishing features of 
the species and groups : thus on pp. 464-465, he separated the species into 
two large sections, which he called “ Aberrant Snipes ” and “ Typical Snipes,” 
and then again (pp. 470-471) subdivided these groups into Typical Snipes, 
Aberrant Snipes, Woodcocks and Semi-Woodcocks : the two former con- 
stituting his “ Typical Snipes ” of p. 464, the two latter his “ Aberrant 
Snipes ” of p. 465. 
This latter classification reads : — 
Typical Snipes : mafor, cequatorialis, frenata, nohilis, macrodactyla, wilsoni, 
gallinago, and gallinula. ) 
Aberrant Snipes : stenura, megala, solitaria, nemoricola, and australis. 
Woodcocks and semi- Woodcocks : minor, saturata, rusticola, rochusseni, 
undulata, gigantea, stricJclandi, jamesoni, imperialis, and 
aucMandica. 
It was reasonably anticipated that with such a basis, Sharpe, in the 
Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, Vol. XXIV., would have 
remedied the defects in this classification in a satisfactory manner, but 
apparently the intricacies of the group dismayed him. 
His conclusions are given in the following quotation (p, 616) : “ The Snipes 
vary considerably in style of plumage and in the amount of feathering on 
the tibio-tarsal joint, the latter being a character frequently made use of 
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