FEMALE SEX PREDOMINANT 
CHAPTER VII 
The Painted Snipe 
HIS gaily coloured Indian and African bird will 
serve as an instance of a not very common phe- 
nomenon among birds, that is the predominance of 
the female over the male sex. As a rule it is the male 
who is gorgeous or gaudy ; he is the ornamental part 
of the household, and ruffles it abroad with his fellows, 
while the dowdily plumed hen stays at home and attends 
to her domestic cares. The painted snipe, however, 
belongs to a matriarchal species, where it is the female 
who is predominant in size and colouring, the cock bird, 
it is said, attending to the duties of incubation. A 
curious structural character emphasizes this reversed 
relation of the sexes. In many birds belonging to quite 
different groups the windpipe, instead of passing straight 
down to its entrance into the lungs, deviates into the’ 
substance of the breastbone, or under the skin, and 
there becomes variously coiled, the anatomical fact 
being followed by a more strident voice. Where the 
sexes differ in this it is the rule for the female to have a 
straight trachea without convolutions. Now in Rhyn- 
chea capensis, as the painted snipe is known to ornith- 
ologists, it is the female who has a slightly coiled trachea, 
while that of the male is perfectly uncoiled. The term 
snipe is a misnomer when applied to this fowl, although 
it undoubtedly does belong to that great group of wading 
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