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



The Painted Snipe scarcely deserves a place amongst the Game 

 Birds ; if in anatomy he is more near the sandpipers than the snipe, 

 in many of his habits and manners he is nearer the rails than to 

 either the sandpipers or real snipe. Hume, with his powers of accurate 

 observation, of course noticed this, and gives a very characteristic 

 little anecdote to illustrate it. He writes : — " On one occasion 

 I saw three running about on a tiny patch of short, 

 close moist turf, just outside the rushes and not 20 yards from 

 where I was, and picking up something rapidly from the ground. 

 After watching them for several minutes, I made a slight clicking 

 sound, and they instantly sneaked into cover with lowered heads." 

 I was once staying in a house in the garden hedge of which a pair 

 of Whitebreasted Water Rails had their nest. When all was quiet, 

 the two adult birds, and later on the parents with their brood, used 

 to come out and wander about on the lawn ; directly, however, they 

 found out that they were being watched simultaneously down 

 went the 8 heads of parents and children, as if suddenly filled with 

 the deepest shame, and they all sneaked off into the shelter of the 

 hedge. If they were disturbed by a dog they took to their wings, 

 and here too they showed how closely the Painted Snipe is like 

 the Rails. Both birds fly in exactly the same manner, though 

 the larger wings of the Painter flap more slowly and laboriously. 

 In starting both Rail and Painted Snipe drag their legs as if it 

 was an effort to lift them up and for some yards after they get 

 under way, the legs hang and then, with an effort, are pulled up 

 and tucked away in proper position under the tail. 



This bird, as a rule, haunts swamps, old watercourses and even 

 ravines and banks of running rivers where there is ample cover ; 

 a long day's shoot in rice-fields is not likely to produce a single 

 bird, though where there are adjacent marshes with thick vegetation, 

 these may contain them in numbers. Even, however, in the 

 larger stretches of water frequented by them, they seem to haunt 

 special patches more than others, apparently preferring those 

 which combine pools of water of some depth with plenty of soft, 

 muddy land covered with a tangle of vegetation. 



Such patches as these the}' are very loth to leave ; they refuse to 

 rise, unless closely pressed and soon return after the cause of their 



