112 GAME-BIRDS OF INPTA 



In Bengal, in the cold weather of 1883-84, I kept an account of 

 2,000 snipe shot, and amongst these there were no more than 

 nineteen Jack, of which eight were bagged in one daj'. In Behar, 

 Inglis and others report them as "rather scarce" and "rare." 



In Upper Burmah, as we have seen, Gates reports them as com- 

 paratively common, bi;t Mr. K. C. Macdonald in writing on the 

 birds of Myingyan records that Mr. Prideaux shot only three birds 

 during the season 1898-99, and that he himself shot one Jack out 

 of 461 snipe shot by him in 1899-1900. 



Harington also records that one or two are shot every year on 

 the Upper Chindwin, and Mr. J. Whitehead in some notes to Major 

 Harington records shooting seven birds in one year out of a total 

 bag of 803 snipe shot near Eangoon, but he says that on the whole 

 he has found them very uncomn^on in Burmah. 



In Cachar and Sylhet, as elsewhere, the numbers varied con- 

 siderably in different seasons. One year Captain (now Colonel) 

 Melville and myself shot ninety-four couple of snipe in three days in 

 a bheel near the station of Silchar and got fifteen couple of Jack 

 amongst them ; and that season we must have shot forty couple of 

 Jack at least. One day I got eight to my own gun. Most years, 

 however, saw only ten to a dozen killed during the whole cold 

 season, and sometimes the number fell to two or three. 



In the Brahmapootra Valley I found them very rare, and I do 

 not remember even seeing more than a couple in one day. 



The above statistics suiSce to show, I think, that the Jack Snipe 

 when compared with the Pintail and Fantail in India, is a very 

 much less common bird ; though in particularly attractive spots it 

 may occasionally be met with in some numbers. It is also possibly 

 more common west and north of Allahabad than it is to the south 

 and east, and gets rare again in the further north and north-west ; 

 but our records from the extreme north-west are very meagre. 



Nidification. — The Jack Snipe breeds from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific throughout Europe and Asia in the far north ; and is, perhaps, 

 most common daring the breeding season in Finland, where its nests 

 were first taken by Wolley. Buturlin found it numerous on the 

 Kolyma Delta in 1905. It is reported to breed in considerable 

 numbers throughout Russia, north of the latitude of St. Petersburg ; 



