GALLINAGO STENUEA 95 



and 1st August, 1886. Mr. Val Weston says that the Pintail Snipe 

 sometimes puts in an appearance in Birbhum in the last few days of 

 July, but does not seem to have shot any in that month, and such 

 appearances must be unusual, for in 1903 he records the first snipe 

 as being shot on the 2;:ird August. 



" Eaoul " in the ' Indian Field ' of the '26th July, 1909, records 

 having seen three snipe on the 20th of that month, and again in 1873 

 he saw snipe on the 13th July ; but these notices of seeing snipe 

 can hardly be taken into consideration as actual records, for there 

 is always the possihlUtij of other little waders having been taken 

 for them. On the other hand it must be noted that Wait in ' Hpolia 

 Zeylanica ' says that in Ceylon the first few birds arrive in the end 

 of August or beginning of September, and that they leave again 

 about mid-April. 



In Dibrugarh the first few birds arrive about the 4th August, in 

 Chittagong about the same time, in Cachar, in Jalpaiguri and the 

 Himalayan Terai they arrive about the 12th of that month, and in 

 Nepal a little later still. Thence they work south and west, arriving 

 in Ceylon in October, and seldom before the end of that month in 

 any numbers. 



The maps which accompany this article will show how the distri- 

 bution of the Pintail and Fantail overlaps, as well as the approximate 

 dates on which the earliest individuals of each species arrive at their 

 respective destinations. The routes are marked in red, and from 

 these it will be seen that the Pintail seems to move more diagonally, 

 that is, more south and west than the Fantail does south and east, 

 and also to migrate further south as a body. Thus at no period of 

 its stay in India is the Fantail altogether absent from the northern 

 portion of its range, but in December and January hardly a Pintail is 

 to be found in the extreme north-east of India, nearly all the birds 

 having gone further south by that time. In February they re- 

 commence working north, and by March have again deposed the 

 Fantail from its position of numerical superiority in north-eastern 

 India. 



The Pintail is as nocturnal in its habits as are other snipe, and 

 like the latter normally migrates by night, but a curious instance of 

 diurnal migration has been reported to me by Mr. L. W. Middleton. 

 He writes : — 



