590 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol XX. 



being extracted from this he struck work and cleared off. Y and 

 I persevered after we had lunched but with no better results until 

 we struck a piece of good walking and here Y collected 5 birds in 

 7 shots and I was so fortunate as to get 8 consecutive birds. 

 Then we got into deep stuff again and the average kills per 

 cartridge again dropped. Eventually after the most exhausting 

 days shooting I have ever had we struck work at about 4 p. m. 

 and totted up our bags. C had, before ceasing, fired 83 shots for 

 one bird, Y, who had picked his shots all day, had got 44 birds in 

 exactly 100 cartridges, and I had managed to collect 68 snipe in 

 204 shots, but of these 68, two I had shot before we started work- 

 ing the deep water and 8 I had got without a miss on a clean 

 piece of walking so that really I had expended 194 cartridges in 

 killing 56 snipe. It was no question of want of birds or of bad 

 shooting as far as Y or myself were concerned, it was just the 

 difficult walking and perhaps, to some extent, the attendant 

 exhaustion. Each step one took, one was sinking more or less 

 slowly the whole time with the consequence that the gunner was 

 twice in every three shots under his birds. 



The following day we abandoned the deep water altogether and 

 Y and I worked round the edges and the across shallow stretches 

 linking one swamp with another. In this way although we did 

 not put up one-tenth the number of birds we had on the previous 

 day we managed between us to pick up over 50 couple in under 

 200 cartridges. 



The supposed differences between the Fantail and the Pintail 

 in the matter of flight and voice have been much discussed, but I 

 am ashamed to say that, to this day, I cannot tell one from the 

 other when on the wing, nor could I ever, with any certainty, say 

 what the bird was from its cry. 



Other sportsmen and field naturalists, however, seem to find no 

 difficulty in discriminating between them. Hume gives his own 

 opinion as follows : "I individually am certain, that all conditions 

 being identical, the flight of the Pintail is more laboured, and 

 more direct, and less zigzaggy than that of the Fantail. " 



" As to the notes of the two birds, I am at a loss to understand 

 how any one can assert that they are identical." At this point 



