12 HIMALAYAN WOODCOCKS. 



time on the neighbouring heights, and hill-tigers and leop- 

 ards were not uncommon. One grand hill, immediately 

 south of the valley, and rising about 3000 feet above its 

 level, was especially famous for game the Thakil by name, 

 so called after a singular kind of palm-tree that grows on 

 it, and seemingly peculiar to that hill, as I observed it on 

 none of the neighbouring ones. Its bare straight stem, topped 

 with a bunch of feathery, fan-shaped fronds, has a rather 

 anomalous effect, shooting up singly, to a height of 30 or 40 

 feet, here and there among gnarled old oaks, rhododendrons, 

 and conifers, at an elevation of between 6000 and 8000 feet 

 above sea-level, and more especially in winter, when the hill 

 is covered with snow. 



On the low ground feathered game was fairly abundant, 

 and a few hares, which were much larger than those of the 

 plains of India. In the depth of winter, woodcocks (here 

 called sim-kokra meaning rill or spring fowl) were to be 

 found. Of the latter, I once in about a month bagged thirty- 

 seven in this valley and a neighbouring one, eighteen being 

 shot in one week. But such exceptional good luck was during, 

 and subsequent to, an unusually severe snowstorm, which had 

 driven so many woodcock down from the higher ranges, where 

 they bred regularly. Most of them, however, were shot in 

 the other valley, which was always more or less favoured 

 by them in winter. I compared stuffed specimens of these 

 woodcocks with their European relative, and found them ex- 

 actly similar in plumage, and apparently so in size. On the 

 same occasion I shot several wood-snipe, which at first, on 

 being flushed, are apt to be mistaken for woodcocks, as they 

 rise in much the same manner, and, like the woodcock, carry 

 their bills hanging downwards when on the w r ing. I once 

 had ocular proof that the woodcock lifts its young from the 

 ground. I was hunting on the Cashmere mountains at the 

 time, when, on flushing a cock, I noticed that its flight was 

 retarded by something it evidently was carrying. As it 



