GALLINAGO STENURA 93 



received some injury wiiich prevented it migrating to its usual 

 nesting ground, though it had left the plains with the intention of 

 going there. 



The bottom of the ditch in which the nest was placed contained 

 a little water, but the banks were only slightly moist and spongy, 

 and where the nest was placed, in amongst the roots of long grass, 

 it was quite dry. The nest was a circular pad of fine roots and 

 grasses with a depression in the centre of about half an inch. It 

 was curiously well and compactly put together, though there was no 

 attempt to weave or intertwine together the articles of which it was 

 composed. 



The eggs, which were fresh, were four in number, and averaged 

 1'48 X 112 inches (= 375 X 28'4 mm.). The ground colour is a very 

 pale, but rather bright yellow stone, and the markings consist of 

 very bold blotches and spots with one or two long scriggly lines of 

 deep Vandyke brown. These are nearly all confined to the larger 

 third of each egg, only a few spots and specks being present in the 

 smaller two-thirds. The underlying marks consist of blotches of 

 purplish grey scattered about the egg in the same proportion as the 

 primary markings. 



The texture is fine and close, and there is a fair gloss : the shape 

 is the usual broad peg-top of all snipes' eggs. 



Mr. H. A. Hole wrote me in 1890-92, that he was sure that a 

 certain number of snipe bred every year in the plains of Cachar, and 

 that he had frequently put up snipe in the newly ploughed fields in 

 June, July and August. 



In 1890 and the following year he failed to obtain any eggs, but 

 on the 14th June, 1902, he got, amongst a great number of painted 

 snipes' eggs, a clutch of three and a single egg, which are undoubtedly 

 true snipes' eggs and almost equally certainly those of the Pintail. 



In both these cases the nests were found on the hands or banks 

 bordering rice-fields and were placed at the water's edge in dense 

 grass and weeds. The rice-fields in this part of Cachar are very 

 small, and consist of the low ground running between and around 

 the small broken hills at the foot of the higher ranges. They are, 

 as usual, divided by narrow banks of a foot or two in height, but 

 in country of this character the borders of the fields and the 



