MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 589 



plete failure. The snipe came in in some numbers at first, but by the end 

 of November there were very few left, for they never really settled : the faci; 

 being, aa far as I could see, that the feeding grounds, except in the paddy 

 fields, were ruined, I visited the Null towards the end of the year, and found 

 this to be the case, and the well known Null islands which are generally good 

 for 100 couple of snipe quite comfortably, only held a. dozen couple or so. 

 There were scarcely any duck, and no coot. 



Wherever I went during that year I faund the same state of things, viz., 

 that except in the paddy there seemed to be no snipe. There were hardly 

 any duck and what there were, were mostly pochard, I also found some pin™ 

 tail, both species addicted to large reedy lakes which might have held out 

 during the previous year, and both very strong flyers, breeding very far north. 



The great masses of gadwall, teal and shovellers, which generally form the 

 bulk of our bags were conspicuous by their absence ; quail there were hardly 

 any. 



Passing now to the year 1901-1902, the early rains were fairly good but the 

 late rains failed. , The Khariff crops were good and there was plenty of grass, 

 but owing to the failure of the late rains the great majority of the tanks were 

 dry ; and as early as November, such places as the little Null and all the 

 sheets of water round the Prantej district were quite dry. 



Compared with former years there were no geese, duck, or snipe, and not 

 many quail. I visited the Null towards the end of November. There were 

 a good number of duck, but no cover and I fancy hardly any feeding grounds, 

 no snipe, and no quail. In other parts of the country the same state of things 

 held good [ov rather bad), the few snipe I killed were in the rivers, and they 

 were in wretched condition and could not possibly have survived the 

 northward journey to their breeding grounds. 



The quail were rather curious. There were at the beginning of the season 

 a fair sprinkling in some places, I never saw better quail ground, but they all 

 disappeared very soon. I am inclined to think, for reasons which I will dwell 

 on later, that a very large proportion of those shot during the early cold 

 weather were rain quail, though I can vouch for the fact that there were 

 some grey quail. 



This closes the history of the 3 years, as far as emigrants are concerned, and 

 we may as well try and deduce something from what we have experienced. 

 First as regards feeding grounds, from what I could see, the feeding grounds 

 of the snipe are, except in paddy fields, (a very limited area unfortunately 

 this year) entirely destroyed. I nowhere found as one usually does birds 

 who had had a good meal and were asleep. Such get up with the startled 

 scream of the awakened glutton and are very different from the shifting wisp 

 or wary single birds who are onlysettling and not feeding. 



This is only what one would expect. The tiny infusoria, on which snipe 

 feed, live in the mud and I should fancy that any ane year (let alone three) 

 during which the tanks were not only quite dried up, but also in most places 



