THE PINTAIL SNIPE. 205 
it was “ Lombard-street to a Chainy orange” in favour of your 
humble servant and his sable gondolier. The buffalo, perceiving 
it was a decided case of nolle prosequz, and that we could go 
three yards to his one, desisted from further efforts ; and, giving 
us the welcome view of his stern, regained the reeds, and was 
heard to plunge and flounder away—so far, indeed, that we 
noiselessly returned to the spot of our first encounter, and 
triumphantly carried off Ardetta sinensis.” 
I have known one or two people seriously injured in such 
untoward vencontres, and it is “just as well,’ as Tickell truly 
says, not to overlook their possibility when Snipe or Wild Fowl 
shooting in buffalo-haunted swamps. | 
The places in which to seek for Snipe vary, even in the case 
of the same species, in almost every district ; and I do not know 
that I can usefully say more in regard to the probable general 
whereabouts of the Pintails than that they love good cover of 
rice, rice stubble, high grass, rush, reed or scrub, in damp ground, 
whether in fields or swamps, on hill-sides or along the margins 
of lakes and rivers, but that they will cling to cover of this 
nature long after the ground in which it grows has become 
comparatively dry. 
Davison writes: “On the plateau of the Nilgiris the 
Pintail Snipe frequent the swamps or marshes that lie at 
the bases of the hills. These swamps vary a good deal 
in the degrees of ‘ bogginess, some being comparatively 
smooth and dry, (though sufficiently wet for this Snipe) and 
are easily got over; others, again, are either very soft and 
slushy, or else closely dotted over with dry, rough, irregular 
mounds, surrounded in every direction by little canals of water ;— 
these last are the worst to get over. You have to step carefully 
or jump, from mound to mound, taking care before you leave 
one to make sure that the next will bear you. If you had 
merely to pick your way over such ground it would be bad 
enough, but when you have to keep a sharp and constant 
Jook-out for any bird that may rise in front, to the side, or 
even occasionally behind you, it makes matters a good deal 
worse. Suddenly, just as you have accomplished a particularly 
nasty jump, before you have had time to settle firmly on your 
feet, you hear the contemptuous sneer of a departing Snipe, one 
of your beaters screams out /svofe (shikarees and beaters on the 
Nilgiris always call Snipe, Jswopfe, or Jsnipe); you whisk 
round to get a shot, see the bird just within range, raise your 
gun, feeling happy at the prospect of adding one more to the 
bag, when, before you know exactly how it has happened, you 
find yourself up to your waist in a nice soft black ooze. Your 
gun has gone off, and so has your bird, and you have to wait 
till you are helped out by a couple of your beaters, who, as 
they approach you, are trying to look sympathetic while it is 
all they can do to avoid laughing outright at your mishap. 
