Greater Painted-snipe

Greater Painted-snipe

Rostratula benghalensis

7th July, 2007

Possible regional races (polytypic)
	-R. b. benghalensis

Rostratula benghalensis benghalensis

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Referring to my remarks, ante Vol IV., p.15, relative to the separation of the males and females of this species in the cold weather. I may mention that it has since occurred to me that the females may assume the plumage of the males after breeding, which would account for the number of what I imagined to be males found congregated separately in the cold weather. The young birds of the year are all in the same plumage at first, viz., that of the male, as I flushed several broods last rains and verified the fact myself. The sentence "I have shot a large number of females without flushing a male" should be expunged, as I find on reference to my game books that all of the birds alluded to were in the garb of the male. This tends to support the suggestion I have now brought forward, and it remains to be decided whether the gaudy dress of the female Painted Snipe is seasonal or not.

[ I have little doubt that the females lose the chestnut collar during winter. I Find specimens shot early in December which have nearly lost it, others that are losing it. Specimens shot early in January that have entirely lost it; none shot in January that show more than the faintest traces of it. All these specimens, however, differ from the males in having the dark pectoral band still strongly marked, and in having al the wing-coverts visible in the closed wing, green, with very narrow dark transverse bars. One specimen, however, shot in the Dhoon on the 15th of February by Dr. King, and sexed by him a female, is precisely similar in plumage to the male. This may be a bird of the previous year, but it is certainly a female, as its dimensions - (bill at front, 1.9; wing, 5.4; tarsus, 1.9) - show. The males seem never to be quite so large as this.

The changes of plumage in this bird, beyond what the sexed and dated specimens in my museum show, are unknown to me, the species only appearing during the rains in those parts of the country which I have chiefly worked.-A.O.H.]

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