926 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HLSTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



of water-supply and consequently of suitable habitation and, to a 

 less extent, of sufficient food. In places where there are swamps 

 well supplied with water and cover all the year round we shall find 

 that eggs of the Painted Snipe may be found during any month of 

 the twelve, being naturally most numerous during those months in 

 which the food supply is most plentiful and the birds are conse- 

 quently in the best condition. 



Legge says in Ceylon — the evergreen — that this bird breeds 

 throughout the year and he mentions having records of eggs or 

 young in every month of the year except January, February, 

 August and October. As, however, he got an oviduct egg on the 

 31st December and young birds in March his records practically 

 cover the whole year. 



In Cachar and Sylhet it is the same, though but few birds breed 

 in March and April Mdien water is comparatively scarce ; in the 

 Sunderbunds they breed all the year round but seldom in August 

 and September when their favourite breeding grounds are flooded. 



Almost any site near water will do for a Painted Snipe's nest. 

 It may be a tiny isolated pool with a few sedges and a sheltering 

 bush or it may be some equally tiny islet just above flood level and 

 placed in the middle of a sea of water and jungle stretching for 

 miles on every side. I have taken them from dense tangles of cane 

 and jungle growing on the borders of the morasses which stretch, 

 in their lonely wildness, for miles along the foot of the Himalayas 

 far from all signs of civilization, and I have taken a nest from 

 a ditch actually in the station of Silchar and within 30 yards of an 

 house. Nor is it necessary that the nest should be placed in un- 

 cultivated swamp land, for in parts of India it is often found (vide 

 Butler) in or near rice fields. He writes : " The nests, all of which 

 were in the vicinity of rice fields, were, in most instances, on the 

 ground ; but in one or two cases they were raised as high as eight 

 or ten inches from the ground, and supported by the grass in which 

 they were built. 



" Of the various situations they were found in, I may mention 

 as one of the most common the raised foot-paths which so often 

 intersect these rice fields. In the rains the sides of the path be- 

 come overgrown with grass, and in this grass the nest is often 



