GALLINAGO GALLINULA 117 



General Habits. — As to the time of arrival of the Jack Snipe in 

 India, and the average date of its departure therefrom, we have 

 not yet sufficient data on which to declare anything very definite. 

 The probabi'Ufi/ is that it arrives much the same time as does the 

 Fantail, and also departs with that bird, possibly arriving a little 

 later and never staying on quite so late as the latest Fantails and 

 Pintails do. Mr. Stoney's records are the only ones we have upon 

 which one can work out a theory of any value. During the ten 

 years these records cover he notes the earliest Pintail as being shot 

 on the 27th August, and the average date of the first bird as about 

 the middle of October. The Fantails also arrived in early October, 

 but no Jack Snipe were shot until the 3rd of November. Whereas, 

 also, his last Pintails and Fantails were shot in April, the last Jack 

 was killed on the 10th March. 



The Jack Snipe is a very particular bird in his choice of an 

 abode, and when shooting over a large tract of country the sportsman 

 will find that but few spots are affected by the Jack, but that these 

 few places are resorted to again and again, by the same bird if it is 

 missed when first put up, or by another if the original occupant is 

 killed. Hume's description of this little Snipe's favourite haunts 

 cannot be improved upon, and I again indent on that much-quoted 

 author. He writes : — 



" Now, these pet abodes have a character of their own ; they 

 may always ba correctly described as comers ; sometimes they are 

 corners of paddy fields, surrounded on two out of three sides by a 

 low earthen emliankmenfc : sometimes they are in an angle formed 

 by a little scrub, or a couple of bushes, often just at the corner of a 

 bed of bulrushes or high reed ; tiiey are always in sheltered secluded 

 spots, where the ground is thoroughly moist or marshy, and where 

 the cover is pretty high." 



This curious affection for " corners " exhibited by the Jack Snipe 

 struck me very forcibly when shooting in Cachar. Our shooting 

 ground was a vast expanse of rice cultivation interspersed here and 

 there with higher land, here and there with deeper pools or stretches 

 of swamp, but for the most part dead level rice-land stretching field 

 after field in every direction. In places, however, small patches of 

 land had been left uncultivated, and in these patches, generally 

 extra swampy and muddy, grew a dense, bushy grass mixed with 



