THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 569 



but two only contained eggs. The nests, placed in the centre of a 

 chimp of thick grass or bracken, were shallow cups of dried coarse 

 grass without any lining of any kind. We put the bird off the 

 nest on two occasions. The first nest contained four beautifully 

 fresh eggs and the second two. One of these eggs was fresh and 

 the other broken and badly addled ! Though the snipe never left 

 the marsh during our search, we heard nothing of the drumming 

 noise, but on several occasions noticed a bird hovering over its 

 nest before settling." 



I have two clutches of eggs, of the Fantail Snipe which were 

 taken in the Santhal Parganas. My general bird factotum skin- 

 ner, egg collector, etc., in this district was a Mahomedan, who had 

 lived all his life in the district and was more Santhal than Maho- 

 medan in his ways and, like most Santhals, was a keen field natur- 

 alist. Shooting snipe one day with this man, he told me that a few 

 bred every year in the ravines between the hills adjoining the Suri 

 Road. I paid little attention to his story and thought that he was 

 referring only to the Painted Snipe, but that same year he brought 

 me a clutch of four eggs which were plainly snipe's eggs, and later 

 on found another nest which I visited, taking the eggs with my 

 own hand and shooting the bird as it left the nest. 



Both these nests were placed at the foot of thinly-foliaged bushes 

 standing in tiny swamps between low hills. The bushes them- 

 selves were so bare that they hardly screened the nest, but there- 

 were a good many tufts of grass and these had to be pushed on one 

 side before the nest was visible. This, the nest, was composed 

 entirely of a fine curly brown grass which formed quite a soft bed 

 for the eggs to lie on. It measured only about 4" across and the 

 centre of the depression was possibly an inch deep. The one I saw 

 myself lay in a small hollow, which was probably made in the first 

 place by the foot of some hoofed animal. 



Blanford, who, however, makes no distinction between coelestis 

 and raddei, thus defines the breeding range of the Fantail Snipe : — 

 " The Common Snipe breeds throughout the greater part of Europe, 

 Central and Northern Asia, but chiefly between latitudes 50 and 70 

 North." 



The eggs of the snipe are normally always four in number and 



