60 GAME-BIEDS OF INDIA 



" The birds do not apparently commence laying in Kashmir until 

 May, and much incubated eggs have been found late in June." 



Wilson, Whymper, Rattray, Buchanan, Ward and others, have 

 since taken its eggs in Kashmir and the Himalayas. 



The first named records that he 



"Came across about six couples of these birds on the Sambul 

 Marsh. We found several of the nests, but two only contained 

 eggs. The nests, placed in the centre of a clump of thick grass 

 or bracken, were shallow cups of dried coarse grass without any 

 lining of any kind. We put the bird off the nest on two occasions. 

 The first nest contained four beautifully fresh eggs and the second 

 two. One of these eggs was fresh and the other broken and badly 

 addled ! though the snipe never left the marsh during our search, 

 we heard nothing of the drumming noise, but on several occasions 

 noticed a bird hovering over its nest before settling." 



I have two clutches of eggs of the Fantail Snipe which were 

 taken in the Santhal Parganas. My general bird factotum, skinner, 

 egg collector, &c., in this district was a Mahomedan, who had lived 

 all his life in the district, and was more Santhal than Mahomedan 

 in his ways, and, like most Santhals, was a keen field naturalist. 

 Shooting snipe one day with this man, he told me that a few bred 

 every year in the ravines between the hills adjoining the Suri Eoad. 

 I paid little attention to his story, and thought that he was referring 

 only to the Painted Snipe, but that same year he brought me a 

 clutch of four eggs which were plainly snipes' eggs, and ls>,ter on 

 found another nest which I visited, taking the eggs with my own 

 hand and shooting the bird as it left the nest. 



Both these nests were placed at the foot of thinly foliaged bushes 

 standing in tiny swamps between low hills. The bushes themselves 

 were so bare that they hardly screened the nest, but there were a 

 good many tufts of grass, and these had to be pushed on one side 

 before the nest was visible. This, the nest, was composed entirely 

 of a fine curly brown grass which formed quite a soft bed for the 

 eggs to lie on. It measured only about four inches across and the 

 centre of the depression was possibly an inch deep. The one I saw 

 myself lay in a small hollow, which was probably made in the first 

 place by the foot of some hoofed animal. 



Blanford, who, however, makes no distinction between gal- 



