114 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



lioUow road ; it came in fours, with a similar cadence and a like 

 clear yet hollow sound. The same day we found a nest which 

 seemed to be of a kind unknown to me. The next morning I went to 

 Kharto Uoma with a good strength of beaters. I kept them as well 

 as I could in line, myself in the middle, my Swedish travelling 

 companion (Herr Salomon) on one side and the Finn talker on the 

 other. Whenever a bird was put off its nest the man who saw it was 

 to pass on the word, and the whole line was to stand whilst I went 

 to examine the eggs, and take them at once, or observe the bearings 

 of the spot for another visit, as might be necessary. We had not 

 been many hours in the marsh when I saw a bird get up liefore Herr 

 Salomon, and I marked it down. In the meantime the nest was 

 found, and when 1 came up the owner was declared to have appeared 

 striped on the back and not white over the tail. A sight of the eggs 

 as they lay raised my expectations to tlie highest pitch. I went to 

 the spot where I had marked the bird, put it up again, found that it 

 was indeed a Jack Snipe, and again saw it after a short, low flight 

 drop suddenly into cover; once more it rose a few feet from where it 

 had settled, I fired, and in a minute had in my hand a true Jack 

 Snipe, the undoubted parent of the nest of eggs. I walked as 

 composedly as possible back to my friend ; he said : ' A common bird, 

 1 suppose ■? ' I replied : ' Yes, very ; ' but I shook him warmly by the 

 hand and told him that common birds sometimes lay very rare eggs. 

 As usual, I took measures to let the whole party share in my gratifi- 

 cation before 1 again gave the word to advance. In the course of the 

 day and niglit I found three more nests, and examined the birds of 

 each. One allowed me to touch it with my hand before it rose, and 

 another got up when my foot was within six inches of it. It was very 

 fortunate that I was thus able satisfactorily to identify so fine a 

 series of eggs, for they differ considerably from one another. I was 

 never afterwards able to see a nest myself, though I beat through 

 numbers of swamps. Several with eggs, mostly hard sat upon, were 

 found by people cutting hay in boggy places in July. I have spent a 

 good many hours this present year (185i) in the same Kharto Uoma 

 without finding one, though I had plenty of men and boys in good 

 working order. There have been certainly few Jack Snipes in the 

 country this season. The nest of tiie 17th and the four of the 18th 

 of June were all alike in structure, made loosely of little pieces of 

 grass and cquiactioii not at all woven together, with a few leaves of 

 the dwarf Ijircli, placed in a dry sedgy or grassy spot close to more 

 open swamp. I found them generally at the best time for finding 

 birds by walking them up from their nests, that is in rainy weather 

 or about midnight. The gnats are, however, there so terribly 

 voracious — destructive — no word is too strong — that tar oil, templar 

 caps, veils and thick leather gloves are indispensable. 



