30 GAME-BIRDS OP INDIA 



which formed tolerable pitfalls to the unwary intruder, receiving him 

 sometimes up to the hip. The jungle on these hills is pretty thick, 

 but not lofty, consisting mostly of briars and thicket : and it would 

 have been impossible to get a fair shot within it, were it not that 

 some of the largest rills (perhaps a yard broad) bordered with mossy 

 turf, formed narrow vistas through the tangle, up and down which 

 tlie birds when flushed would fly, giving some chance for a snapshot. 

 We had no dogs, a luxury known to very few Indian sportsmen, but 

 employed beaters to find the game. I had never even seen cock- 

 shooting in England, and my first day's experience of it in Nepal 

 surprised me not a little. I was a good snipe shot in those days, 

 and, 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 open- 

 ing in 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. These sudden jerks and zigzags, in the midst of its 

 otherwise dilatory flight, are terribly puzzling to a novice. The bird 

 alights also in the same fashion, dropping at once down as if it had 

 flown against a wall. They were not numerous in Nepal, and two 

 couple bagged to one gun during the afternoon was considered very 

 fair sport. We found them only on the low spurs bordering the open 

 valley of Kathmandu, on its northern side — on such slopes as were 

 of the description above given, looking more like the copses and 

 hazelwoods of England than the forests of India." 



Tickell's remarks on the bird's flight are very good and to the 

 point. At home the bird is a strong, good flier, and the curious 

 indefinite manner it has of flying is often far more puzzling to a 

 beginner than the flights of swifter straighter-going birds. Its very 

 haunts, of course, add to the difficulties of shooting, as in addition to 

 its naturally zigzag flight, it is constantly twisting and dodging to 

 escape obstructions ; then too, the light is often not of the best, and 

 the extreme silence of its rise and flight is in itself disconcerting. 

 There is no warning whirr of wings or " pench " as of a snipe rising, 

 the first thing is you see it, perhaps only as it flits behind some 

 impossible jungle, barely giving time for a hasty snapshot. 



In India the Woodcock seems to be of a far more tame and con- 

 fiding nature than it is in Europe, and this also affects the flight 

 as the bird makes no effort to get away at any pace when it is 

 flushed. Hume writes : — 



