VARIETIES OF SNIPE. 



the sportsman pursues wild-fowl, offering such easy shots as 

 almost to ternpt him to fire, though by so doing he must 

 to a certainty forfeit a right and left into the flocks of 

 ducks and teal he may be nearing cautiously. Morning and 

 evening the same birds will be on the feed among the soft 

 green grass or young paddy growing on the borders of the 

 " jheel," at which time they will .afford good sport for two or 

 three hours. 



I am unable to state the proportion of the pin-tail to the 

 common snipe in Bengal. The difference between them is 

 often overlooked, but I think the latter variety far more- 

 plentiful than the other. On one occasion my companion and 

 I took the trouble to examine a hundred birds shot in the 

 Hooghly district, with the result of only one pin-tail, being 

 clearly distinguished by the two sharp and stiff pin-like outer 

 tail-feathers. The numbers of these two varieties are rarely 

 marked by the sportsmen \vho have shot them. 



Those who have followed this sport much, must have 

 noticed now and then, perhaps only half-a-dozen times in 

 the course of the season, a larger and heavier bird than 

 the common snipe, and with more white on the breast. 

 What this variety may be, is unknown to me by name ; but 

 that there is such a one I cannot doubt. 



The jack and painted snipe are abundant in certain 

 localities specially suited to their tastes, such as reeds and 

 grass for the former, and swamps, bushes, and rank weeds 

 for the latter which breed in India, or at least in Bengal and 

 Assam. I have shot as many as six or seven jacks in the day, 

 and have always found them present in the proper season 

 in the tall reeds on the good snipe ground near Ranaghat 

 already mentioned. The painted snipe is common throughout 

 the country; generally found in pairs, it associates in great 

 numbers about the breeding times and places. On one occa- 

 sion, while beating up a tiger in a swampy bush jungle in 

 Assam, these birds rose before me in dozens, and settled 

 again quickly, after a short flight of a score or two of 

 yards; that spot being probably their nesting place, and 



