8i INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



bered that this bird is far less retiring, and is found in the low 

 cover that satisfies ordinary snipes, and often haunts the margins 

 of little streams in bare ravines where the cover is very scanty. 

 Now and then, however, it may be found actually in forest, and 

 Mr. Stuart Baker shot a breeding male in North Cachar in such 

 a situation. Its bill is less sensitive and, therefore, less adapted 

 for boring for worms even than that of the pintail, and its chief 

 food appears to be small insects and tiny snails, and, although 

 good eating, it is, in Hume's opinion, not equal to the rest of our 

 snipes. 



Its nuptial flight is much like that of the common snipe, but 

 it descends from its pitch more slowly, and the sound it produces, 

 though of the same general character, is recognizably different, 

 as might have been expected from the different structure of 

 the outer tail-feathers ; it is harsher, and more of a buzz than a 

 bleat. The nest is of a very slight character, and the eggs, four 

 in number, are, according to Oates, easily distinguished from 

 the eggs of all other snipes by their pinkish buff ground colour. 

 They are clouded with dull purple and spotted boldly with dark 

 brown, these spots tending to be elongated and to run in streaks. 

 In the Himalayas breeding begins in May. 



The Hindustani name. Ban Chaha, is the same as that 

 applied to the wood-snipe, so that natives as well as Europeans 

 seem to confuse these two very distinct birds. The Khasin name 

 is Simpoo, the Assamese Boner Kocha, and the Cachari Daodidap 

 gophu : the Nepalese BJiarka simply means " Snipe" generally. 



Western Solitary Stvipe. 



Gallinago major. "Double Snipe."' 



This fine snipe, called great snipe by naturalists at home, 

 is as big as our two large mountain species, but easily dis- 

 tinguishable from both by the outside tail-feathers being nearly 

 all white and of normal width, this ordinary structure of the 

 tail-feathers being a point to be noticed in young specimens, 

 in which they are barred ; four pairs of the feathers show this 

 "white, or white ground. Only one specimen shot in India has 



