28 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



do it" and putting every beast within hearing on the qui 

 vive. I have then shot them in revenge. 



Snipe is, after all, the most pleasant of the small game 

 shooting in Lower Burma, and though plentiful everywhere 

 during the season (which generally lasts from early in August 

 to the end of October, though the birds are found later in 

 certain localities), yet it is not every one who knows the best 

 places to look for them. All paddy fields not too much 

 flooded have them, but these should, in my opinion, be 

 avoided. There is a great deal of knack in knocking the 

 birds over, but more in finding the most suitable places to look 

 for them. I used to go about during the cold season after the 

 paddy had been cut and stored, and noticed places which I 

 thought would be left fallow next season, or I looked up 

 ground slightly inundated and covered lightly with reeds or 

 rushes ; and I used to go there and come back in the season 

 with a stick laden with the long-bills when better shots than 

 myself had not a quarter of the birds to show. The Burmese 

 don't cultivate the same fields every year ; they leave some 

 fallow for cattle to graze upon, which get manured by their 

 droppings. The ground is always wet, and as they roam 

 about, the cattle turn up the sods with their hoofs, and the 

 snipe which are never far off pounce upon the worms, and 

 will not leave such ground if not too much harassed. Some 

 wonderful bags have been made in India, and also in Burma. 

 An officer of the 8oth or i8th regiments, I forget which, killed, 

 near Shoaydoung, in 1852, 80 couple in one day; but I 

 think the record bag has been 130 couple to a single gun 

 somewhere near Madras. 



I never shot more than 51 J couple in the day, and the most 

 I ever found on my stick on getting home was 49^ couple, the 

 others having been purloined or dropped off. I once thought 

 I was going to make an immense bag. I was shooting at 

 Tseben, and before twelve o'clock I had 36 couple on my 

 stick. I then went to the Zyat, where I was putting up, for 

 breakfast, thinking I should double my bag by the evening ; 

 but heavy rain set in ; the birds got wild, and I only killed 

 12 couple more, and one hare, which was a rarity on the 

 Sittang side. 



