44: GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



Snipe is to be seen only in tiny swamps or morasses, partly or wholly 

 surrounded by thick cover — tlie Solitary Snipe in little swampy places 

 on open, grassy hillsides or along the margins of rocky-bedded bare- 

 banked streams." 



It however does sometimes actually frequent forest land, for one 

 shot by Colonel Wilson in Shillong was found in grass land more or 

 less covered with pine forest, and the breeding male shot by myself in 

 North Cachar was put up out of bracken in oak forest, the trees being 

 quite close together and much matted and covered with orchids and 

 other parasites. 



Such birds as I have records of as shot along the foot-hills of the 

 Himalayas seem to have been all obtained from grass bordering patches 

 of swamp, situated either at the bottoms of grassy hills or else in com- 

 paratively open ravines. 



Colonel Wilson, writing to me about this snipe, says : " I have 

 only killed about half a dozen of these in my time and all round about 

 Shillong. I found them in the same sort of ground as the ordinary 

 snipe and never in matted grass such as the Wood Snipe inhabits. 



"On March the 13th, 1890, when shooting with Mr. W. H. 

 Dobbie, I killed three Solitary Snipes all within a few yards of one 

 another." 



Hume found, in the stomachs of those he examined, small insects 

 and tiny grubs ; in two or three were found masses of tiny black 

 coleoptera and in one some minute shells. In the one bird I have 

 examined there were numerous tiny shells and what looked like the 

 remains of some grey-coloured caterpillars. 



From the formation of the bill of birds of this sub-family one 

 would expect to find them all more or less addicted to boring in 

 the earth for their food. The bills of all Snipes are so constructed 

 that by elevating the end of the maxilla, or upper mandible, they can 

 be opened for about one-third of their length whilst the gape 

 itself is still kept closed. This enables the snipe to thrust its bill 

 into the soft ground or slush in which it feeds, and having found its 

 prey, to grasp it without resorting to the great muscular effort which 

 would be necessitated by an attempt to force open the whole bill from 

 gape to tip. 



Knowing this fact, an examination of the bill of each species may 



