64 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



Doig records their arrival on the Eastern Narra in September. 

 Maitland notes the first snipe shot at Jacobabad on the 28th August, 

 while Mr. C. 0. Lowsley records the first snipe round about that 

 place as early as 23rd August. Mr. A. Hosken shot four snipes near 

 Secunderabad on the 26th August, and Theobold says that they do 

 not arrive in Southern India until October. 



As one would expect, the further south the birds go on migration, 

 the earlier in the hot weather their departure takes place. Thus in 

 Ceylon they leave in early March, and in Western India, Travancore 

 and Madras most birds have left by the end of that month, though 

 a few stay on well into April, and Hume says that individuals are to 

 be seen '"in the North and South of India in May and June." In 

 North-eastern India I think few birds stay after the middle of April, 

 but a few are shot now and then even in May. In 1882 I shot three 

 Fantails on the Haripal Bheel near Calcutta on the 24th May ; in 

 1871 Baldwin shot seven, and saw many more, near the village of 

 Goovsora in Lablatpore on the 2nd May. 



In the ' Indian Field ' of the 12th May, 1904, a correspondent 

 records shooting snipe up to the 3rd May, and "Eaoul," in the same 

 paper of the 26th July, 1909, also records shooting a snipe on the 

 3rd May. 



Captain F. L. Hughes of the 20th Punjabis writes me that he 

 has flushed a snipe in Jhelum on the 20th May, 1910. 



A few birds stay all the year round in the plains, but these do 

 not number one in every ten thousand of those that visit us, and are 

 undoubtedly birds which have been wounded and so temporarily 

 incapacitated from long flights. In this category I place the birds 

 shot during May at Haripal and also others which were found 

 breeding in the Sonthal Parganas. 



All snipe are more or less nocturnal, or, at all events, crepuscular 

 in their habits, and their migrations take place almost entirely by 

 night. As a rule, moonlight nights are selected for their journeys, 

 and at the commencement and end of the migration seasons the 

 constant pench, pench, of snipe flying overhead may often be heard, 

 although the birds themselves may be far too high to be visible, even 

 on the most brilliant of moonlight nights. 



As sportsmen well know, the snipe is very intolerant of sun, and 



