268 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



uttering a loud, sharp, jerky call, and then descending rapidly with 

 quivering wings and out-spread tail, producing a harsh buzzing 

 sound something like, but shriller and louder than, that produced 

 by the Common Snipe, and this though they do not descend as 

 rapidly as this latter. " 



The Solitary Snipe is a most excellent bird for the table, though 

 as Hume says, perhaps less so than some other members of the 

 genus. 



Nidification. — Gallinago solitaria is known to breed through- 

 out its Indian range at suitable elevations. Hume records : " The 



breeding season commences in May The nest, such as it 



is, is usually placed on grass or moss, close to some stream, often 

 more or less overhung by some tuft of grass or rushes. It consists 

 at most of a few dead rushes or scraps of dry grass or moss, sur- 

 rounding or at times lining a little depression in the moss, turf or 

 ground. In one case I was told there was no nest at all, the eggs 

 being laid simply in a circular shallow depression in deep, spongy' 

 club moss, apparently merely hollowed by the pressure of the bird's 

 body." 



" I have never myself seen a nest, but have this information from 

 natives who have repeatedly seen the eggs, always at places high 

 up on snow-capped ranges, and on snow-fed streams. " 



" I have never succeeded in securing or even getting a sight of 

 the eggs, though on one occasion several (subsequently unfortu- 

 nately destroyed) were collected for me in Kashmir. '" 



Oates has shewn however in his " Game Birds," p. 442, that the 

 eggs Mandelli obtained from Sikkim and believed to be those of the 

 Wood Snipe were almost certainly of this species. As regards these 

 eggs, Herr. Otto Moller gave Hume the following details : — 



" The eggs were found in Native Sikkim, just opposite Darjee- 

 ling. Mandelli several times pointed out to me the spur where 

 they were found, the elevation of which is, I should say, between 

 eight to nine thousand feet. The eggs, eleven in number, were 



procured during the latter part of June but the eggs, 



though clearly all belonging to the same species, equally clearly 

 belonged to four different nests and the men could not point out 

 the clutch to which the skin belonged. " 



