352 THE PINTAIL SNIPE: 
However, after having been well scraped, you start again, and 
if you are fortunate and know your ground well, or have a 
shikaree who does, and knows when to look for the birds—for 
these Snipe, though found about the body of the swamp, in the 
morning and afternoon, generally retire during the day, (unless 
it is cloudy) to the edge of the skola which usually heads 
every swamp, or to the cover of the andromeda bushes which 
fringe its edges—you may succeed in bagging half a dozen 
couple; and if you are not solely intent on the long bills, may 
have added a couple of Hares,a brace of Spur Fowl, a few 
Bush Quail, and perhaps even a Grey Jungle Cock, to the bag. 
“Snipe shooting on the Nilgiris is generally accomplished 
with the aid of beaters, more or less numerous according to 
taste and resources, and perhaps a few dogs; buta very effective 
and very economical way—and one to which the swamps about 
Ooty are particularly adapted—is to have, say only two men, and 
twenty or thirty yards of rope, about the thickness of a lead 
-pencil. To the rope should be attached, at distances of two or 
three feet, tags about a foot long of white cloth. On coming to a 
swamp, one man goes to either side, each holding one end of the 
rope which they drag over the swamp, occasionally flapping it 
up and down. If the swamp is a narrow one you skirt it; if a 
broad one, you walk down the middle, but in either case a few feet 
behind the rope, and you will thus obtain a good many shots. 
“When disturbed, the Pintail will, on being flushed, often 
settle on grassy hill-sides far away from water, or take refuge 
in a shola, and often, when they first come in, they will alight 
on bare hills where they will remain the whole day.” 
Again, I may quote my friend Mr. Vidal’s remarks on Snipe- 
shooting in the Southern Konkan, though these apply equally to 
both species :— 
“Snipe-shooting in Ratnagiri can seldom be had before the 
first or second week in November, after the monsoon rice has 
been harvested. Even then the birds are so scattered and 
uncertain in their choice of grounds that a great deal of heavy 
walking is necessary to get a moderate bag. The best grounds 
are the low-lying kharvat rice fields, on the banks of the tidal 
creeks, and reclaimed from the salt water, by earthen embank- 
ments. But in shooting over such grounds it is well, if possible, 
to choose your time so as to have two or three hours of the 
‘highest tide. For all round the paddy fields are acres and acres 
of mud swamps with stunted thorny bushes, in which many of 
the birds lie at low tide until they are driven up to the fields 
by the flood. These mud swamps, intersected by tumerous 
deep channels, and full of pit-falls and sticky black slush, are 
too nasty walking to tempt even the most enthusiastic sports- 
man. But as the Snipes themselves are driven from these 
pestilent strongholds by the tide, there is happily no necessity 
to venture into them. 
