328 THE WOOD-SNIPE. 
They are very shy retiring birds, much more so than the 
Woodcock, and are never seen like these on the outskirts of 
villages. They are always near the edge of the jungle, at 
some swampy patch, never like the Woodcock often is, a 
mile inside the forest, alongside some rocky torrent which at 
most only boasts here and there a tiny corner, between two 
great rocks, of spongy turf. Nor do you find them even in 
the most suitable looking patches of mossy swamp, if these are 
on a bare hill side a quarter of a mile even away from forest 
or jungle. 
This at least is my (limited) experience of the species on 
the Himalayas. Davison says :—‘‘ The Wood-Snipe is a rare 
bird on the Nilgiris, coming in, I think, later than the Pin- 
tail, and leaving earlier. .They are usually found singly 
(though on one occasion I flushed two out of a clump of 
brambles about ten feet_across.) They frequent the outskirts 
of the solas where these are marshy—never, as far as I am 
aware, being found any distance in the inside of the jungles 
as the Woodcock occasionally is. Scrub-clad ravines through 
which a stream flows is also a favorite resort, and on one or 
two occasions I have flushed them from under small isolated 
bushes growing in marshy ground. They rise silently, fly 
rather lazily, and for only a short distance, and then drop again 
into cover.” 
As to this latter there can be no doubt. They rise 
in the same, dazed, hesitating, blundering owl-like way, 
as the Woodcock often does when first flushed, and like it 
generally drop abruptly behind the first convenient bush. 
Very likely when well on the wing they may, as does the 
Woodcock, when emerging from a cover to dart in againa 
few yards lower down, fly pretty smartly; but I have never 
happened to see a Wood-Snipe with steam up. 
From their dazed appearance and sleepy flight, when 
flushed in bright sunlight, I should imagine them to be nocturnal 
in their habits. Certainly during the brighter hours of the day 
they are very unwilling to rise, allowing you almost to tread 
on them before they do so, and being thus very likely to escape 
notice, unless dogs are used. But in the early morning and 
evening they will rise spontaneously like Common Snipe (though 
even then sluggishly) when you are still twenty yards distant 
from them. 
In the day time they certainly dislike being disturbed, and 
one can imagine them addressing the intruder in the words of 
the Prophetic Maid to Odin :— 
* Unwilling, I my eyes unclose, 
Leave me, leave me to repose !” 
One cannot help feeling a sort of sympathy for these shy, meek, 
inoffensive birdies, who only ask to be left in peace in their 
pet little swampy corners; but in this peculiarly constituted 
