Tae WOODCOCK, 
SS SO 
scolopax rusticola, Zenné. 
SH 
Vernacular Names.—[Sim-titar, Tutatar? (Jerdon); Sham-titar, Sham-kukra, 
Aumaun ; Chinjarol, Chamba; Kangtruk, Manipur ; Wilati-chaha, Chittagong ; 
Murgh-i-zerak, Persia ; ] 
aa SS 
RESIDENT during the summer of the higher 
wooded ranges of the Himalayas at elevations of ten 
thousand feet and upwards, from Gilgit* to the 
western borders of Bhutan (and probably much 
further east), the Woodcock retreats in autumn to 
the lower valleys ; and while some spend the winter 
there, and in the Duns, Terais, Bhaburs, and simi- 
lar submontane tracts that skirt the bases of these mountains, 
*T select a few out of the mass of notes I have accumulated in regard to the 
occurrence of this species in the Himalayas. 
Amongst the birds found by him in Kashmir west of the Indus which Major 
J. Biddulph enumerates in a letter to me, is included the Woodcock. 
** Generally distributed over the Kashmir Mountains in woods and forests where 
it breeds.” —A,. Leith Adams. 
** Woodcock come down to Chamba, which is in the valley of the Ravi, about 8,000 
feet high, whenever there is severe weather in the higher hills. They donot remain 
here for the winter, but keep coming and going. After snow and rain they are to be 
found in good numbers in the gardens and low lands by the river, but if it clears up 
they disappear again. ‘This winter, for instance, they came down at Christmas time 
and disappeared early in January, not coming back till the middle of February, when 
there was a great deal of snow. ‘They are very tame and not easy to flush. They 
allow the natives to come very near them, without rising. I have shot them in my 
own garden in the middle of the town. They breed of course in the higher wooded 
hills, but I have not yet tracked them to any of their breeding haunts,”— 
C. H. T. Marshall, 
‘¢ Pretty common throughout the year, at one elevation or another in Kullu, and 
the valley of the Beas. } ; 
‘‘ They breed in the Tos Forests near the limits of vegetation ; in the summer 
they come flitting round the camp fires at night, like great bats. They descend into 
the upper valley about November, and the first general snowfall sends them down into 
the lower valley. The end of January is about the best time for them. The 
largest bag that I know of was 33 to two guns between Nuggur and Ryson ; a good 
many others were missed. If the season be at alt favourable, one is pretty sure of 
flushing a dozen or so in the course of a day in their especial haunts. I have often 
come across them squatted beside the streams like frogs, and flushed them within a 
dozen yards or so, more particularly in a hard frost. — : 
‘¢ A portion of those seen in the Kullu Valley during the winter may be migrants 
from further north, but great numbers breed withus.”—A. Grahame Young. 
** About the end of November I have shot them in several of the valleys below 
Simla, and in the Sutlej below Kotgarh, During the winter, they are constantly 
