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



the heavy going. By 11-30 I was compelled to take another 

 breather, by which time the bag had increased to 24 couple, and 

 as I was now thoroughly disgusted with 3-§- hours floundering about 

 in the abominable mud I insisted on being taken on to the good 

 ground — good indeed it was — not swarms of birds rising in wisps 

 of 20 and 30 as one sometimes sees, but evenly distributed in ones 

 and twos all over the place. There were also a considerable 

 number of jack and painted snipe about, but these I tried to avoid 

 shooting, though in the end I got two jacks. These were the 

 result of snapshots taken at birds disappearing over the tall reeds 

 when there was no time to discover one's mistake till after the 

 trigger had been pulled. 



" Many dead birds fell amongst the tall hoogola where retrieving 

 them was most troublesome and tiring work for the coolies and, 

 though I had three of 1113- best men out that day, I would not like 

 to say how many birds were lost. 



" In spite of these drawbacks, the excellence of the sport and the 

 difficulty of the shooting kept my keenness up till 5 p.m. when I 

 found the men were so used up as to be practically useless and, as 

 I was beginning to go a bit off my shooting myself, I decided to 

 give up. On counting over the birds on the sticks I found 259 

 common or fantail snipe, 1 pintail snipe, 2 jack and a quail. 

 What the latter was doing in such an uninviting spot it is hard to 

 say, unless it had been driven in to the tall hoogola by hawks. I 

 only once got two birds at a shot that day and was using an 

 ordinary hammerless gun, Schultze powder, No. 8 shot, and last 

 but not least a hand protector. 



" Though I have on six other occasions shot bags of over 100 

 couple on that particular ground this was the last and best. Since 

 then a dense growth of green rushes has spread itself all over the 

 jheel and so covered up the feeding that birds are comparatively 

 scarce though from 30 to 40 couple might still be got in a da}-. 

 Taking into consideration, however, the long railway journey, the 

 hard work and heavy going I have never considered the place 

 worth visiting of recent years." 



Such a bag as this has never fallen to my lot, but I once had the 

 luck to come across the birds in such numbers that though I 



