THE PAINTED SNIPE. 387 
while I have no doubt that they have two broods a year, I think 
it possible that, under favorable conditions, they may have more. 
I have only once myself taken a nest, and that was at the end 
of August, in a small swamp on the Diamond Harbour Road, 
about six miles from Calcutta. It was on very wet ground in 
the midst of low rushes, and consisted of half-dry rush twisted 
round into a tolerably neat and compact nest. It measured 
six inches in diameter exteriorly, and less than four inches in- 
teriorly, and the cavity, which had no lining, was a good inch in 
depth. It contained two quite fresh eggs. 
A nest of this species, sent me by Mr. A. J. Rainey, is 
a large circular pad of mingled coarse and fine rice-straw, 
some 6 inches in diameter and about 1°75 in thickness, and 
with a central depression, perhaps three-quarters of an inch in 
depth. It was taken on the 22nd September 1871 at Khalis- 
poor, about 1% miles from Khulna, in Jessore, on rather wet 
ground, ina bare field from which acrop of rice had been reaped 
about a month before. 
Mr. S. Doig wrote to me some years ago: “I found a nest 
of the Painted Snipe on the 23rd of June, in a small island in 
the bed of the Narra. The bird leaving the nest fluttered 
off as if her wing was broken, and after going some twelve 
yards, lay with her wings spread out on the top of the weeds 
near the shore. The nest, which was a slight depression in 
the ground at the root of a tussock of grass, contained four 
eggs, very much incubated. On the same island were a lot 
of young ones just hatched, and on another island I found 
young birds fully fledged.” 
Since then he has taken numbers of nests in May, June, and 
July on the Eastern Narra. 
Captain E. A. Butler has also taken many nests, and to sup- 
plement my personal want of experience, I shall quote an 
excellent account he formerly wrote to me of the nidification of 
this species :— 
“At Milana, eighteen miles east of Deesa, I found several 
Painted Snipe’s nests this year (1876.) The dates upon which 
they were discovered are given below. 
“The nests, all of which were in the vicinity of rice fields, 
were, in most instances, on the ground; but in one or two cases 
birds, wrote me shortly before his death that he had once found a nest with young in 
the month of April in the Western Province. It was situated in the grass of a bank 
between two paddy fields. Again, a friend of mine observed a pair of old birds in 
company with two young near a tank in the south of Ceylon. This was in May 
1872. On his giving chase, the chicks took to the.water and swam like ducklings. 
In the beginning of September last year, I had several young brought me from 
Wackweell, near Galle, a locality where I have found them more abundant than any- 
where else in Ceylon. These data corroborate Layard’s statement, but they testify 
at the same time to a wider period, commencing a month earlier and ending a month 
later. With regard to the cool season, I am aware of eggs having been taken perfect 
from birds in November, and of the young being captured in March. Mr. Holdsworth 
procured a beautiful egg from a wounded bird on the 31st December (P. Z. S., 
1872, p. 473), and I obtained another taken from a dead bird on the 29th March.” 
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