294 SPORT IX BENGAL. 



market ; so that the birds are never given a chance to accu- 

 mulate in such numbers as otherwise they certainly would do. 

 A good shot can usually secure his twenty to thirty couple, 

 and two shooting together with straight powder forty to 

 sixty. The best day I myself ever had, and that by no 

 means a long one (from eleven to four or five o'clock), ended 

 with ninety-seven and a half couple to three guns ; another 

 day, shooting with a friend at Kanchrapara, two other guns 

 being out also, we got a hundred couple between us in 

 about five hours, but I rarely visited that famous ground, it 

 being too much shot over by men from Calcutta and Barrack- 

 poor, though it is undoubtedly one of the choicest resorts of 

 snipe in all Bengal. A ground near Ranaghat is, for about a 

 week or ten days in the season, still better ; and there are 

 many other good places on both sides of the Hooghly river, 

 from ten to sixty miles up the railway lines, besides others 

 four to ten miles off them further inland. A place about four 

 miles east of the Nyhatty station on the Eastern Bengal line, 

 has been a favourite of mine for some years, and has afforded 

 me good sport, and heavy bags of thirty to fifty couple in 

 four or five hours during the hottest time of the day in Sept- 

 ember and October. The grand secret of good sport is to 

 be on the ground during the week or fortnight when it is 

 at its prime. 



The bags made in Arracan, near Akyab, and in some 

 parts of the Bombay Presidency are as heavy or heavier ; also 

 in the North-west Province, bags of fifty and sixty couple 

 are not uncommon; but on the whole Bengal can probably 

 boast of a wider field for the snipe-shooter's favourite pursuit 

 than any country I have heard or read of in the four (or is 

 it five ?) quarters of the globe ; after all, the pleasure is not 

 in shooting great numbers, but in securing moderate bags of 

 twenty or thirty couple on fair walking ground, varied by shots 

 at teal, quail, hares, partridge, and golden plover ; arid in that 

 light I have enjoyed better sport in some parts of Manbhoom 

 than anywhere, when in the cold season and with compara- 

 tively easy walking, thirty to forty couple have fallen to two 



