THE PINTAIL SNIPE. 353 
* The best Snipe-shooting is to be had near the coast in the 
vicinity of the large rivers; but inland there are many snug 
little grounds formed by terraced rice fields at the foot of 
the hills, and here and there a low-lying tank, where the mon- 
soon water, rapidly receding, leaves an oozy bed ef rushes and 
sedge, where a few Pintails are always at home. December 
and January are the best months for Snipe-shooting, as by that 
time the superfluous rain water has all evaporated, and the 
birds are concentrated in all their regular legitimate haunts, 
whereas earlier in the season the area of wet ground is 
so large that there is no knowing where to look for them.” 
~ All Snipe seem to affect particular spots; there may be 
fifty localities within a radius of a few miles, all,so far as any 
human being can judge, equally likely to attract the birds, and 
yet in practice there always prove to be two or three corners 
possessing such irresistible attractions for them that year after 
year, and week after week, whether the other likely spots are 
blank or not, ¢key are sure to contain Snipe if there be any in 
the country. There used to be, and probably is still, a small 
swampy pond on the road-side, between Maipuri and Bhongaon, 
a trumpery little place skirting a much frequented high road, 
to which one year, that I was detained in the station, I drove 
every morning, but Sundays, during the greater portion of 
November and December, and where I each day killed every 
Snipe on the pool, from two to, I think, on one occasion six 
couple without once finding less than four birds. These were 
Common Snipe, but I know that the same precisely is the case 
with Pintails; and Mr. Fasson alludes to an instance of this 
kind in Chittagong. Hesays: “There is a tank near Chu- 
kurea, by the road side, which we have frequently noticed as 
always containing a couple of Snipe. I and others have, during 
the past three years, gone by that road some fifteen or twenty 
times, and have never failed to shoct a Snipe in that tank, some- 
times a couple, and have always found it re-occupied even if we 
visited it again the next day. It isa smallish tank with low, 
reedy grass edges, in which edges the Snipe lie.” 
Davison writes to me of a curious trait observed by him of 
this species, which, so far as I am aware, has never been noticed 
in tlic case of the Common Snipe. He says: “ At Klang, 
in the Selangore District, (Malay Peninsula) I noticed that the 
Snipe (G. sthenura) instead of remaining in the paddy flats and 
other similar low-lying places (which they frequented during the 
day) all resorted for the night to two comparatively elevated spots. 
One, and the favorite one apparently, was a grassy tract lying 
between the Klang fort at the top of the first rise of the hill, 
and the Resident’s house which is a little higher up. This bit of 
ground was very dry and covered with a short, stiff, turf grass. 
_ The birds, as soon as it began to get dark (which was soon after 
6 P.M.), began to arrive from all directions, singly, in couples, 
Wi 
