144 GAME BIRDS OF INDIA. 



paddy fields, rice stubble fields, edges of jheels, tanks, and river- 

 courses, feeding, chiefly at night, on worms and various aquatic 

 insects. Their pursuit is a favorite sport throughout India, and 

 vast numbers are occasionally killed. I have heard of 100 couples 

 having been killed to one gun in the South of India ; and sixty 

 or seventy brace is no very uncommon bag for a first-rate shot 

 in some parts of the country. Snipe always rise with a piping 

 call, and fly against the wind ; occasionally they alight on bare 

 or ploughed land, and not unfrequently take refuge in some 

 neighbouring low jungle. 



Snipe breed in Northern Europe and Asia, laying four eggs 

 yellowish white, spotted with brown, chiefly at the large end. The 

 peculiar humming noise made by some Snipe during their flight 

 at the breeding season, was shown by Meves of Stockholm to 

 depend on the outer tail-feathers ; and the noise can be imitated 

 by drawing these feathers attached to a wire rapidly through the 

 air. The particular sound varies in each species according to 

 the structure of the tail. 



AtL Tail of 12 uniform feathers ; of small size. Lymnocrypies, 

 Kaup. 



47. Gallinago gallinula, Linnaeus. 



Sykes, Cat. 198— Jerdon, Cat. 338— Blyth, Cat. 1611— 

 Gould, Birds of Europe, pi. 319. 



The Jack Snipe. 



Descr. — Crown divided by a black band slightly edged with 

 reddish brown, extending from the forehead to the nape ; beneath 

 this and parallel to it are two streaks of yellowish white, separated 

 by another of black ; a dusky line between the gape and the eye ; 

 back and scapulars black, glossed with green, and with purple 

 reflections; the scapulars with the outer webs creamy yellow, 

 forming two conspicuous longitudinal bands extending from 

 the shoulders to the tail ; quills dusky ; wing-coverts black, edged 

 with pale brown and white ; throat white ; neck in front and upper 

 breast pale yellow brown tinged with ashy, and with dark longitu- 

 dinal spots ; lower breast and belly pure white ; tail dusky, edged 

 with pale ferruginous. 



