90 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



The fact that it has modified feathers in the tail no doubt 

 indicates that it performs love-flights and makes tail-music — a 

 snipe point — but as a matter of fact there seems to be no record 

 of this. The breeding-zone of the wood-snipe is lower in the 

 Himalayas than that of the woodcock, for though it may be 

 found breeding up to 12,000 feet, and therefore in the woodcock's 

 territory, it also breeds as low as 4,000, at which elevation Mr. 

 Stuart Baker took a nest near Shillong, while in Manipur 

 it is suspected of breeding at 2,000 feet, and Mr. Baker 

 rather thinks it is resident in the Himalayan dooars. 



The egg he got from this nest seems to be the only authentic 

 one in existence and, unfortunately, it happened to be a dwarf 

 one ; the others in the clutch were smashed by the struggles of 

 the parent, which was snared on her nest by his collector, but 

 as the man said they were all alike, it is enough to indicate the 

 colour, which, says Mr. Baker, is like that of many common 

 snipe's eggs, but unusually brown ; the shape also is quite 

 ordinary. The food of the wood-snipe consists rather of insects 

 than of worms, and curiously enough of small black seeds also ; 

 it is itself a particularly good bird for the table, if not of much 

 importance as an object of sport. 



Woodcock. 



Scolopax rusticola. Sinititar, Hindustani. 



Plenty of good sportsmen have never shot or even seen a 

 woodcock, just as Tickell says was his case, his first impressions 

 of the bird, in Nepal, being as follows : " Imagining from the 

 general resemblance of the two birds that a woodcock must fly 

 like a snipe, I was much taken aback, when hailed to 'look out,' 

 at perceiving what appeared like a large bat coming with a 

 wavering, flagging flight along the little lane-like opening of the 

 wood where I was posted ; but in an instant, ere I had made up 

 my mind to fire, the apparition made a dart to one side, topped 

 the bordering thicket, and seemed to fall like a stone into the 

 covert beyond." 



When this queerly behaving bird is brought to bag, it is seen 



