94 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



banks themselves are always much overgrown with grass, weeds 

 and small bushes. 



All four of these eggs are of the same type as those described 

 above, merely differing in having a somewhat greener ground-colour, 

 and the markings rather less heavy and more evenly distributed. 

 They average 1-58 X 111 inches ( = 401 X 281 mm.). 



I have also an oviduct egg in my possession which was taken 

 in the early part of August, 1889, from a female Pintail shot by 

 someone in Cachar on the Bheel surrounding the rifle range. The 

 bird was dissected and the egg sent me by the late Colonel Evans, 

 I. M.S., at that time attached to the regiment stationed in Silchar. 



This egg differs from all others I have seen in being very dull 

 in colour and curiously brown in general hue. The markings are 

 like those in the Silchar ones, but have the distribution reversed, 

 i.e., they are principally confined to the smaller instead of the 

 larger end. 



The underlying spots are also unusually dark, and are of a 

 purplish-brown. The egg measures 1'55 X 114 inches ( = 393 X 

 28-9 mm.). 



Another oviduct egg was also obtained in Cachar from a Pintail 

 Snipe. I think this was in August, 1887 or 1888, but am not sure 

 of the date, and the shell being still soft, the egg was not preserved. 



An oviduct egg is also to be seen in the Colombo Museum {vide 

 Wait) taken from a female shot late in the season in Ceylon. 



General Habits. — In Eastern India the Pintails arrive early in 

 August, but there are a few records of snipe being killed in July. 

 Fasson writes //; cpistolci to Hume : — 



" I have flushed snipe in the hill jungle in June ; and Jarbo, up 

 at Eangamati in the hill tracts, shot half-a-dozen couple on the 

 31st July last." 



Those seen in June were probably birds which had been wounded, 

 and therefore unable to migrate, whilst the occurrence of the others 

 in July must have been abnormally early. The record of the first 

 snipe to be shot each year in the Chittagong district has been 

 given by "Politye" in the 'Indian Field' of 9th July, 1903, for 

 the years since 1878, and according to this record the next earliest 

 dates to those mentioned by Fasson were on the (ith August, 1892, 



