96 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



" On September 8th I went out in the morning to see if the 

 snipe were in and shot six and put up over thirty ; so, in the after- 

 noon about five o'clock, I again went out, thinking I was going to 

 liave a merry time, but I only saw three, and of those two rose 

 straight up and joined a wisp of eight or ten which were crossing 

 over at the time. I only found two more and then sat down to 

 watch, and whilst so doing actually saw live rise and join flights of 

 others which were passing over. I saw fully ten small lots come 

 into view and make across the liiUs in a south-westerly direction. 

 Next morning I went down early and trudged for an hour without 

 putting up a bird, but I must have seen several hundred crossing 

 overhead, one lot alone numbering fifty to sixty birds. The day- 

 was a bright sunny one, and exceptionally hot." 



Mr. Middleton's letter was written from Gauhati, and the hills 

 he refers to are the Khasia Hills. It is interesting to note how he 

 remarks on these snipe working from one hill range to another instead 

 of down the valley in which he was shooting. 



The Pintail Snipe differs a good deal from the Fantail in its habits, 

 and will often be found in situations never frequented by the latter 

 except when driven there by heat or by being over-shot. Very 

 favourite haunts of the Pintail in Assam are the wide waste lands of 

 sun grass worn down by village buffaloes to an average height of some 

 eighteen inches, here and there the land being almost bare, whilst in 

 patches elsewhere the grass may be three or four feet high. During 

 the rains, water, often to a considerable depth, covers these spaces, 

 but by October and November they are practically dry, and even in 

 the rains there are nearly always portions which are a little above 

 water level. The Pintail Snipe shelter and feed in these grasslands, 

 keeping almost entirely to the drier portions, though if the right 

 kind of food is present, they also frequent the wet patches and the 

 marshy bits which are dotted about over the whole of the area. 

 Hume remarks on the feeding ground of the Fantail and Pintail as 

 follows : — 



" Both the Pintail and Fantail affect cover and moist ground, so 

 that where both these luxuries exist, you will continually flush both 

 species at the same spot ; but the difference between them is that, 

 while the Pintail, if unable to get both his requirements, will stick to 

 grass and such-like cover, even if there he little perceptible moisture 

 in the ground, the Common Snipe in such case will stick to the wet 

 ground even if there be little parceptible cover there. The consequence 



