472 Manual of the Game Birds of India. 



were on the ground, that they had chosen 

 a spot to alight within twenty yards of 

 a man with a gun. It was amusing to 

 see them find out their mistake. Some- 

 times as soon as they caught my eye they 

 would take wing and fly quietly away; 

 but more often they would hurry off as 

 fast as their legs would carry them, and 

 hide behind a tuft of grass or a bush. 

 I never heard the Pin-tailed Snipe * drum, ; 

 as the Common Snipe often does, when 

 wheeling round and round at a consider- 

 able height in the air; nor did I ever 

 hear the tyik-tyuk so characteristic of the 

 Common Snipe. I think the Pin-tailed 

 Snipe is much easier to shoot than our 

 bird. The flight seems to me slower and 

 less zigzag." 



Perhaps Mr. Seebohm was too early 

 in such high northern latitudes to witness 

 the peculiar habits of this Snipe at the 

 breeding season. They are thus described 

 by Colonel Prjevalsky, who refers to this 

 Snipe under the name of G. heterocerca. 

 He says : " It breeds in tolerable numbers 

 on the Ussuri, but is still more plentiful 

 during migration, about the loth of April 

 and in the end of August. 



" In the latter half of April the birds 

 choose their nesting-localities in the thinly 



