20 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



It will be seen that the measurements of my eggs do not bear 

 out Hume's opinion as to Indian birds being smaller than European 

 but rather endorse my view that Indian birds average small 

 because they are immature. 



Seebohm gives the size of the Woodcock's eggs as being 1'8 to 

 1'6 inches in length and 1'4 to 13 in breadth. 



Dresser gives the average size as being 1"75 X 1'32 inches. 



General Habits.— For some reason the Woodcock always forms a 

 most fascinating object of pursuit for the sportsman. It does not 

 matter whether it is a cold, hazy morning on the Welsh coast, a 

 sweltering day in the foot hills of the Himalayas, or a balmy day in 

 the lovely climate of December in the Nilgiris or Khasia Hills ; the 

 owl-like flip-flap of the brown bird's wings brings the same little 

 thrill to the gunner, and the soft thud amongst the bracken and 

 bushes in reply to a successful shot brings a feeling of pleasure that 

 is, for some reason, paralleled by the slaughter of few other game- 

 birds. 



The haunts of the Woodcock are in themselves attractive and 

 one can wander, gun in hand, through sombre pine forest, sunlit copse 

 of oak or the dense scrub of an Indian ravine always with a certainty 

 of being interested, whatever the sport may be. There is something 

 in one's surroundings which makes one take an optimistic view of 

 life, and it is not until one returns to buildings and the cook has 

 worked his will on the results of the day's bag that one once more 

 remembers that " only man is vile." 



My experience of cock-shooting in India, is, unfortunately, 

 practically nil. I have shot a casual cock in the plains of Cachar 

 and of Kamrup and more than occasionally have bagged a brace in 

 North Cachar but I have never had the delight of a long day's trudge 

 through the bracken and pine forests of the Khasia Hills, in which 

 I lived so many years. Perhaps the most successful of the many 

 sportsmen Shillong has harboured was Colonel Wilson, formerly of 

 the 8th Gurkhas, and to him my thanks are due for much informa- 

 tion and a most interesting account of his first cock in 1908. He 

 writes : — 



" They generally arrive after the 15th October (thougii I see in 

 1890, I killed one on the 8th), and I generally begin to look for them 



