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



this, species seeks its food more exclusively in mud and water 

 than does any other. 



On an examination of snipe shot very early in the morning or 

 late in the evening, that is to say when feeding, I have often found 

 their stomachs full of a tiny white worm which seems to be found 

 in and about the roots of rice. I have shot snipe with these 

 worms actually in their bills or gullets as well as in their 

 stomachs, but never when the birds were shot late in the day 

 before the sun had sunk low. To obtain these worms the bird 

 has to bore deep into the mud and must often have to put its 

 whole head under water before it can reach them, as I have shot 

 snipe, containing this article of diet, feeding in water some 

 inches deep. 



The snipe is not a bird one would have expected to thrive in 

 captivity but it has more than once been tamed. A most interest- 

 ing account of a tame Fantail Snipe reared by hand appeared in 

 " Nature " and again in the " Avicultural Magazine." This bird 

 was so tame that it took worms from the hand of its owner and was 

 sufficiently confiding to allow excellent photographs to be taken 

 of it. 



There is very little on record about the breeding of the Common 

 Snipe within Indian limits although it must breed throughout the 

 Himalayas at suitable elevations. 



Brooks heard it drumming over a swamp in Kashmir where it 

 doubtless had its nest, and Hume records that "numerous eggs have 

 been collected ' by native collectors." " The nests found in 

 Kashmir were described as cup-shaped hollows in soft, mossy, 

 spongy turf, surrounded or overhung by rushes and grass, and 

 sparingly lined with fine grass, and in one case with the needle- 

 like leaves of a horse-tail (Equisetum)." 



" The birds do not apparently commence laying in Kashmir 

 until May, and much incubated eggs have been found late in 

 June." 



Wilson, Rattray, Buchanan, Ward and others have since taken 

 its eggs in Kashmir. 



The first-named records that he "came across about six couples of 

 these birds on the Sambul Marsh. We found several of the nests, 





