ROSTRATULA CAPENSIS 127 



In Siam, Herbert found eggs in July and August and full-fledged 

 young in September and October, whilst he only obtained a chick 

 in down at the end of the former month. 



Almost any site near water will do for a Painted Snipe's nest. It 

 may be a tiny isolated pool with a few sedges and a sheltering bush, 

 or it may be some equally tiny islet just above flood level and placed 

 in the middle of a sea of water and jungle stretching for miles on 

 every side. I have taken them from dense tangles of cane and 

 jungle, growing on the borders of the morasses which stretch, in 

 their lonely wildness, for miles along the foot of the Himalayas, far 

 from all signs of civilization ; and I have taken a nest from a ditch 

 actually in the station of Silchar, and within thirty yards of a house. 

 Nor is it necessary that the nest should be placed in uncultivated 

 swamp-land, for in parts of India it is often found (vide Butler) 

 in or near rice-fields. He writes : — 



" The nests, all of which were in the vicinity of rice-tields, were, 

 in most instances, on the ground ; Ijut in one or two cases they were 

 raised as high as eight or ten inches from the ground, and supported 

 by the grass in which they were built. 



" Of the various situations they were found in, I may mention 

 as one of the most common the raised footpaths which so often 

 intersect these rice-fields. In the rains the sides of the patli become 

 overgrown with grass, and in this grass the nest is often built. 

 Another favourite place is tlie short, dark-green rushy grass that 

 grows by the side of tanks and in swampy ground — this, perhaps, is 

 the most favourite place of all ; and in many of the nests found in 

 this situation the blades of grass were drawn together over the top 

 of the nest, so as to form a sort of canopy as in some nests of 

 Porzana akool. Another favourite spot is a rice-field which has been 

 ploughed up and left unplanted for some time until the grass begins 

 to grow over it." 



The l)ird does not always wait, however, even until the grass has 

 begun to grow, for during three seasons Mr. H. A. Hole found nests 

 placed in fields which had been so recently ploughed that there was 

 practically no growth on them, and the nest had been placed merely 

 under the shelter of a clod of earth larger than the average. Two 

 or three such nests were shown to me by him, and others I myself 

 found when staying with him. Some nests, the majority perhaps, 

 were placed in the jungle which covered the sides of the ditches, but 



