THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 909 



As a rule the Jack sits very close and requires a good deal of 

 persuasion to make it rise. Nor does it run after alighting as the 

 Common Snipe so often does, and if after being flushed it again 

 settles, it will, if looked up at once, be found at the exact spot 

 where it has dropped. It is said to have an extremely strong 

 smell, so that shooting with dogs, as at home, Jack are not often 

 passed over, but out here, where dogs are, and can be, but seldom 

 used, many Jack must be passed over as they lie snug in their 

 cover. 



Jack rise silently and very vertically, and once up and away, 

 their flight is exactly like that of a butterfly. It may be slower 

 than that of either the Pintail or Fantail, but it is a very disconcert- 

 ing bird to fire at after one has been shooting for some time at the 

 bigger birds. Hume says that it is probably one of the easiest 

 bird in the world to shoot if you reserve your fire to the proper 

 moment, but I must personally confess that I have never yet quite 

 made up my mind as to which this proper moment is. The bird's 

 whole flight is so erratic that one can never tell what its next 

 movement is going to be ; it rises, drops, dodges to one side or an- 

 other irrespective of all ordinary rules of flight and then when you 

 think it has steadied down to a flight in one definite direction, it 

 falls to the earth as if already shot, and you then walk it up to have 

 the same performance repeated. 



Directions as to how to shoot the Jack Snipe are plentiful, and 

 two may be quoted. Booth says:- — "A Jack Snipe .... was 

 almost invariably missed through firing too quickly, and .... I 

 was forced to repeat aloud one, two, three, four, five, six before 

 bringing my gun to the shoulder . . . now . . . ill-luck invariably 

 attends the bird that is patiently waited for." 



Colonel Hawker, however, gives the following advice : — " Noth- 

 ing teases a poking shot worse than a Jack Snipe, but to one who 

 has the knack of pitching and firing his gun in one motion, the}^ 

 are generally speaking not much worse to shoot than other 

 small birds." 



Its curious flight seems also to be too much even for the power- 

 ful winged birds of prey, for Finn records that Mr. Jesse " recently 

 saw one pursued by quite an assortment of Raptorial birds, and 

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