THE WOOD-SNIPE. 329 
- universe, one must it seems “amboss oder hammer seyn,’ and 
the more you shrink from interfering with others, the more 
earnest they become in meddling with you. 
The Wood-Snipe does not seem to be such a great worm 
devourer as the Woodcock. I have only a record of the 
contents of the stomachs of a few, but these were only large 
naked soft grubs, small aquatic insects and remains of insects, 
especially tiny black coleoptera, small hard black seeds, and 
gravel. Whether the black seeds were eaten by mistake for 
tiny beetles, I cannot say ; but they were not merely accidental, 
for they occurred in two out of five specimens, and Hodgson 
also notes having found them in one bird that he examined. 
They are very silent birds. I have never heard them utter 
any sound, nor have I met with any one who has, except Captain 
Baldwin, who says that they utter a hoarse croak on rising. 
Still in the breeding season they must have some call-note, 
probably not unlike that of the Woodcock. 
OF THEIR nidification little is as yet known. That they breed 
in the Himalayas between elevations of about seven and ten 
thousand feet (and perhaps, though I doubt it, considerably 
higher,) is certain. That they begin to lay early too is probable. 
Hodgson notes that on the 1oth of March the eggs in the 
ovary of a female were swelling, and another shot early in April 
contained a nearly full-sized but unshelled egg. But no 
European, I believe, has ever yet taken the nest, though Mr. 
A. G. Young writes that he £zows that they do breed in Kullu. 
But, as already mentioned, Mr. Mandelli’s native shikaris 
did once come upon several pairs breeding, and brought in four 
clutches of their eggs ; and in regard to these Herr Otto Moller 
sends me the following particulars :— 
“The eggs were found in Native Sikhim, just opposite Dar- 
jeeling. Mandelli several times pointed out to me the spur 
where they were found, the elevation of which is, I should say, 
_ between eight and nine thousand feet. The eggs, eleven in 
number, were procured during the latter part of June, and the 
men brought with them the skin of a Wood Snipe, which they 
said they had shot from one of the nests ; but the eggs, though 
clearly all belonging to the same species, equally clearly belonged 
to four different nests, and the men could not point out the 
clutch to which the skin belonged. 
“T know by my own experience that our European Great 
Snipe (G. major), commonly thus breeds in company, z.¢., where 
you find one nest, there in the immediate neighbourhood you 
find several others, and probably this is the case with the present 
species also.” 
Judging by these eggs, some of which Mandelli gave me 
(the rest of them have been kindly lent me by Herr Moller) 
5 I 
