SNIPE SHOOTING 



the waterspreads of the tanks, as well as in any 

 rice fields which may be lying fallow for the season. 

 Very often, while the rice (or paddy) is still short- 

 more particularly if it has partially failed and is thin 

 numbers of snipe may be found in the crop itself. 

 They need not, however, be looked for in high, 

 thick paddy, though even when the crop is approach- 

 ing maturity, I have found a fair number of birds 

 upon the divisions (or bunds) between the little 

 fields, where it would not, however, be ordinarily 

 worth while to seek them. 



In one portion of the Mysore province, a goodly 

 number of the inhabitants are engaged in the 

 growth of silk, and it was in mulberry fields 

 below a tank, that I one day found the bulk of 

 the birds which yielded a bag of sixty -one and 

 a half couple to my own gun. This was at 

 Chinnapatna, on the line of rail between Bangalore 

 and Mysore. 



At Yedatore, about twenty -two miles from the 

 town of Mysore, a friend and I once made a bag of 

 sixty-nine and a half couple in a day, fifty couple 

 of which fell to my own gun. The shooting upon 

 this occasion was obtained mainly in the water- 

 spread of a tank and in fallow rice fields. 



My largest bag of snipe in one day single-handed 

 was sixty-three couple, and was made a few miles 

 from Madura (in the Madras presidency), where I 

 enjoyed the best snipe shooting which I have ever 

 had. On the last eight occasions upon which I 

 went out for this game from the town of Madura, 

 I averaged almost exactly thirty couple per diem 



