66 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



we found that our biggest bags were obtained in the middle of the 

 day in the big jheels of deep water, where we had to wade in any 

 depth from oar knees to our chests. The snipe got up close to us 

 and appeared in most cases to have been resting under the big 

 lily-leaves which covered the whole surface of the water. 



In Assam it is little use working the rice fields, though on rare 

 occasions decent bags may be obtained in them. Generally the 

 birds are found in weed-covered lagoons and jungle-fringed tanks 

 where walking is hard and the shooting diflicult. In many places 

 in Assam there are wide stretches of water covered with dense 

 masses of floating weed, strong enough to support one for a brief 

 second, yet hardly thick enough to allow one to stand and shoot. 

 In such places I have seen birds so numerous that to get bags of 

 200 couple all that was required was straight powder, which, needless 

 to say, was never to be found when shooting in ground of this 

 description. 



Of Burmah, Tickell says : — 



" Snipe shooting in Burmah or Arakan is a pursuit of pleasure 

 under considerable ditficulties. The sport is in its prime long before 

 the country has emerged from the Hood of the rainy monsoon, so that 

 Auceps has to wade through paddy fields up to his middle (if not 

 haply higher) and under a sun which blisters his back, before he can 

 make a good bag." 



In Upper India Hume records that snipe are to be found 



in every swamp or marsh, on the margins of ponds, lakes and 

 rivers wherever there is a more or less muddy foreshore protected by 

 low grass, rush or weed. Of all things they seem to love a kind of 

 rush with a circular stem {Scirpns carinatus, I think) which is 

 common about the edges of ponds and jheels in the North-west 

 Provinces and which is a sure find for them; In the heat of the 

 day, where Urher and similar crops run down to the water edge 

 alongside some jheel, you will often find many snipe in those." 



In Southern India they also seem to frequent ponds, jheels and 

 river edges far more than in Bengal, but in many places they also 

 are often shot in large numbers in the rice fields. 



Eeid notices a fact about snipe, which is absolutely correct, 

 though not often noticed by sportsmen, and this is that snipe seldom 

 allow their breast and lower plumage to become really wet or draggled. 



