THE PINTAIL SNIPE. 341 
Further north on the eastern side of the Peninsula,* in the 
Northern Circars, the eastern portions of the Central Provinces, 
Orissa, the Tributary Mdahals, Chota Nagpur, Gya—in fact the 
country between the Ganges and the Gddavari afud Ball—it 
is difficult to make out (so discrepantt are the accounts) in 
what proportion the two species occur}; but I gather that in the 
level, low-lying, rice-growing tracts, the Pintail predominates, 
while in the hilly, jungly portions of this vast area the Common 
Snipe is much more numerous. 
In Lower Bengal, west of the Brahmaputra, I believe, that 
both species are, taking the whole season round, about equally 
plentiful ; but at any rate about Calcutta, and probably generally 
in Lower Bengal, this species greatly predominates towards the 
commencement of the season. In Bengal, east of the Brah- 
maputra, in Assam, right up to Sadiya, and in Cachar and 
Sylhet, I gathert that, though both species are found every- 
where, the Pintail is on the whole decidedly the most common. 
In Arakan, Pegu, Tenasserim, the Andamans and Nicobars, 
* Colonel McMaster writes that out of a bag of 38 couple made near Madras, 
which he examined carefully, exactly half were Pin and half Fantails. 
+ According to Ball, S. F., T1., 431, while the Common Snipe is common in 
Chota Nagpur, he personally never met with the Pintail; and from his general 
résumé of the Avifauna of the entire tract lying between the Ganges and the 
Godavari, it is to be gathered that he considers the Fantail the common universally 
distributed species, and the Pintail only of occasional occurrence in a few loca- 
lities. But from Cuttack, Ganjam and Vizagapatam, I am informed that the 
Pintail is the Common Snipe. From Raipore, Blewitt wrote: ‘‘Out one day 
towards the end of April, shooting with Colonel Fullerton and Captain Sherman, 
we found numbers of Snipe in a plot of low-lying, swampy rice ground some six acres 
in extent, and [ noted that out of 47 couple, which we killed, all but five and a half 
were Pintails.” And again of the northern part of the tract, of which Gya may be 
taken as the centre, Brooks writes: ‘‘On the whole the Pintail is more frequently 
met with along the Chord Line than the Common Snipe.” The fact is, Ball’s 
geological work kept him, I fancy, mostly in the hilly portions of the vast area 
about which he writes, where the strata are exposed, and took him comparatively 
little into the level, low-lying, alluvial tracts, and hence perhaps the great discre- 
pancy between his view of the relative abundance of this species and those 
of other observers. 
~The most opposite opinions, however, are expressed; and the above is only 
my ad-interim conclusion based on a mass of very discrepant evidence. In 
weighing this I have had to make the best estimate I can of the relative value of 
opposing statements, and therefore my conclusions based on it may prove to be 
erroneous. No one can ever know the trouble I have taken to work out this 
question, or the difficulties that I have met with in so doing. I will give an 
instance: A and B, both gentlemen, in every way entitled to credence, but both 
personally unknown to me, wrote from the same station. A said: ‘* The 
Pintail is ‘Ze Snipe of the district ; we kill five of these at least to every Fantail.” 
B wrote: ‘‘The Common Snipe is very common here: not so the Pintail. which 
I have rarely met with.” What was oneto do? Isent A’s letter to B, B’s to A, 
and begged both to work the question out on the spot. A like a sensible man set 
to work and registered all his own and friend’s kills ; B wrote me an ill-considered 
letter, asking if I meant to impugn his word, and refusing to have anything more to 
say tome. A/’s figures, though not so large as I should have wished, bore out his 
assertions ; and (though I may have erred in so doing), looking to the conduct 
of both, I conceived A to be the most reliable witness, and accepted his view. 
I may add in regard to Assam that my collectors have sent me altogether ten 
Pintails, collected partly on the Khasi Hills, partly about Sibsagar, Dibrugarh 
and Sadiya, but not one Fantail, which looks as if the latter were greatly in the 
minority. 
