THE COMMON OR FANTAIL SNIPE. 367 
to represent it), very different to different ears, is too well known 
to require further notice. 
Speaking of the bags made, or asserted to be made, of this 
species, Mr. Reid remarks :— 
“TI have heard of fabulous bags—ranging from 80 to over 100 
couple in a day—being made by a single sportsman; but the 
largest I can vouch for is one of 57 couple made by myself 
in the Lucknow division. It included, however, 11 couple of 
‘Jacks ;) but, though I was looking for them, not a single 
specimen of either the Painted or Pintailed Snipes.” 
Now, though I have never myself made even quite as large 
a bag as Mr. Reid, as in the days when I mostly shot this 
present species we used large bore muzzle-loaders, with heavy 
charges, the rapidly repeated concussions from which always 
knocked me up bothin Quail and Snipe-shooting before the day 
was much more than half over, I do not consider bags of 100 
couple even at all fabulous; and I am quite sure that any good 
shot, with a rather heavy small bore breech-loader, with small 
charges, might, to this day, easily bag his hundred couple in 
the day in many places in Upper India. 
I have never myself seen a Snipe perch on either bush or tree ; 
but sportsmen have assured me that in the hills they have 
occasionally seen this; and it is a well-ascertained fact that, 
during the breeding season, they do in Europe often so perch 
high up upon large trees, as well as on lower perches of a 
similar nature, and thence emit their well-known nuptial call, 
tchik-tchak, tchik-tchak. 
In many parts of the country, but specially in the neigh- 
bourhood of Calcutta, numbers of both kinds of Snipe are 
caughi in horse-hair nooses, thousands of which are set between 
tufts of grass and in little natural or artificial lanes in the rushes, 
on favourite and frequented feeding grounds. It is also said that 
they are caught in nets, but I never was able to learn the 
modus operaudt, and I cannot conceive how this can be done 
unless possibly with a high standing net at night, the birds 
being worked against the wind, so that they go straight away 
without rising high, 
ALTHOUGH No European has, I believe, yet taken the eggs 
of this species within our limits, a few do certainly breed in 
Kashmir. Mr. Brooks saw and heard* one drumming (as it 
is commonly called) in orthodox style over a marsh there, and 
numerous eggs have been procured by native collectors. 
This humming, drumming, neighing, or bleating note, as it is 
variously designated, a sound quite swz generzs, and never to be 
* Mr. Brooks writes: ‘‘I saw a Common Snipe soaring away above the 
swamp where I took the Mallard’s nest ; and, as it was making its breeding, bleating, 
and drumming noise, doubtless its mate was sitting on its nest below, though I 
failed to find it.” 
