344 THE PINTAIL SNIPE. 
cannot learn that anything similar has been observed,*—indeed 
the birds arrive, if anything, earlier in the extreme south than 
in the north. And this is inno way surprising, for the 
migration is not a northand south, but a north-east and south- 
west one; and itis not the birds from Pegu and Moulmein, 
but from countries north-east of it that supply the Malay 
Peninsula, just as Bombay is supplied, not by birds crossing 
the Himalayas due north of it (where this species is unknown), 
but due north-east of it, vz@ Nepal and Kumaun, or further 
east still. 
The time of their departure varies a good deal according 
to season and locality; but I believe that in Peninsular India 
in average years the majority leave before the middle of March,f 
and in Continental India before the middle of April, but in some 
years they are earlier and in some later; and alike in north 
and south some remain always much later, in some places well 
into May, and ina good many hilly localities a very few seem 
not to migrate at all. 
Like the Common Snipe, the Pintail is sometimes met 
with in twos, threes or single birds ; but in all favourable localities, 
itis met with in considerable numbers, which, though feeding 
and, as a rule, rising when disturbed separately, are all obviously 
acting in concert, arriving and leaving any feeding ground 
en masse. At the beginning of the season, in Lower 
* It is true that Bingham says, writing from Moulmein: ‘‘It is very strange that, 
at the beginning of the Snipe season, one gets only the Pintail, and at the end 
chiefly the Fantail, with only one or two perhaps of the former.” 
But this requires a little qualification, according to others; and if actually about 
Moulmein, Pintail are scarcer about the middle of the cold season, this does not 
appear to be at all the rule inland in Tenasserim or Pegu; and if it be so at 
Moulmein, it is probably due to the fact that the majority of the birdsseen in the 
Andamans and Nicobars, would naturally arrive vzé that portion of Tenasserim. 
+ Theobald, already quoted, (note p. 343), says that in the Peninsula south of 
the 12° North Lat., ‘they leave in March, though some stragglers are shot 
in April.” 
Again others say :—- 
‘‘In Belgaum the Pintail appears to stay on through the hot weather until the 
thunderstorms come. Of course after February it is confined to the patches (chiefly 
found in jungles) of irrigated rice-land, and on being ‘ shikared’ soon takes refuge 
in the jungle. Most of the birds probably leave about the end of February when 
the country begins to get very dry; but I have found that in jungle tracts some 
stick to the irrigated rice until the hot weather storms come. ‘lhese are very 
uncertain—sometimes commencing in March, sometimes in April or even the end 
of May. Probably a few birds stay on during the rains.”"—F. S. Laird. 
‘‘On the 22nd April this season I bagged four and a half couple, and saw several 
others. They were in excellent condition and showed no signs of breeding.” — 
E. A. Butler. 
‘¢ The majority of the Snipe leave the Southern Konkan in March ; but a few hang 
about the neighbourhood of the tidal creeks till April and even May.” —G. Vidad. 
‘In Mysore, Snipe remained common till the month of April.’—F Davidson. 
But Major Charles McInroy, in a note quoted a little further on (note, p. 345), 
shows that, on the 26th of March 1878, they had mostly left Mysore. 
In the Calcutta market these Snipe are generally common up to the 15th of April ; 
after this they are scarce insome years. In others they are common, quite up to 
the close of that month. A few may be seen in some years in May, but never, 
I am told, more than a few. 
