45© Manual of the Game Birds of India. 



— a harsh screeching imitation of the note 

 of the Common Snipe. 



" They feed, to judge from those I have 

 examined, chiefly on small insects and tiny 

 grubs. I have found a mass of minute 

 black coleoptera in the stomachs of two or 

 three ; of one I find noted ' minute shells ' 

 There is always a quantity of gravel or 

 coarse sand in the gizzard. 



"They are excellent eating, but not 

 I think quite equal to any of the other 

 Snipes, the best of which are certainly the 

 Jacks. There is not much on these latter, 

 but what there is^ is delicious. 



" The breeding season commences in 

 May, when the males are to be often 

 heard and seen in the higher portions of 

 the hills, soaring to a considerable height, 

 repeatedly uttering a loud, sharp, jerky 

 call, and then descending rapidly with 

 quivering wings and outspread tail, pro- 

 ducing a harsh buzzing sound something 

 like, but shriller and louder than, that 

 produced by the Common Snipe, and 

 this though they do not descend as 

 rapidly as this latter." 



In treating of the Wood-Snipe, I have 

 explained what seems to me to have been 

 a mistake made in the identification of 

 the eggs of a Snipe taken by Mandelli's 



