THE EASTERN SOLITARY SNIPE. 335 
ravines and valleys, where there were only small corners and 
nooks of turfand mossy swamp, and no cover a foot high. 
I have no doubt found them in small open swamps in the 
middle of jungle, but they stick to the grass and low rushes, 
and I never myself observed them in scrub or ringal jungle. I 
have known Wood-Snipe and the Eastern Solitary Snipe flushed 
within a short distance of each other ; but, as a rule, the Wood- 
Snipe is to be seen only in tiny swamps or morasses, partly or 
wholly surrounded by thick cover—the Solitary Snipe in little 
swampy places on open grassy hill sides, or along the margins 
of rocky-bedded, bare-banked streams. 
The Solitary Snipe has a much higher range in summer, and 
does not go nearly so far south in winter. In the Himalayas 
at all seasons it is at least ten times as numerous as the Wood- 
Snipe. It is just as commonly met with in two’s and three’s 
as singly whereas (in the hills at any rate) the Wood-Snipe 
is always solitary. 
The flight of the Wood-Snipe, and the shape of its bill, are 
“wood-cocky,” of the Solitary Snipe, both are “ snipey.” 
The latter rises, flies, twists, and pitches precisely like a 
Pintail Snipe, but is somewhat less rapid and agile in all its 
movements than this, and @ fortiori than the Common Snipe. 
The Wood-Snipe, so far as my experience goes, rises invariably 
silently ; the Solitary Snipe goes off with a loud “pwich’—a 
harsh screeching imitation of the note of the Common Snipe. 
They feed, to judge from those that I have examined, chiefly 
on small insects and tiny grubs. I have found a mass of minute 
black coleoptera in the stomachs of two or three; of one I 
ined noted “minute shells” Where is always a quantity of 
gravel or coarse sand in the gizzard. 
They are excellent eating, but not I think quite equal to any 
of the other Snipes, the best of which are certainly the Jacks. 
There is not much on these latter, but what there is, is delicious. 
THE BREEDING season commences in May, when the 
males are to be often heard and seen in the higher portions 
of the hills soaring to a considerable height, repeatedly 
uttering a loud, sharp, jerky call, and then descending rapidly 
with quivering wings and outspread tail, producing a harsh buzz- 
ing sound something like, but shriller and louder than, that 
produced by the Common Snipe, and this though they do not 
descend as rapidly as this latter. 
The nest, such as it is, is usually placed on grass or moss, 
close to some stream, often more or less overhung by some 
tuft of grass or rushes. It consists at most of a few dead 
rushes or scraps of dry moss or grass, surrounding and at times 
lining a little depression in the moss, turf or ground. In one 
case I was told that there was no nest at all, the eggs being 
