396 THE SNIPE-BILLED GODWIT. 
Trans-Baikalia. Later however he found it on the Argun River 
(which divides Trans-Baikalia from that part of Northern 
Mongolia, called Kheluntsyan on English Maps) in about 
50° North Latitude. It was very plentiful there in the spring, 
and remained until the females were nearly ready to lay, 
but did not nest there, probably proceeding further north for 
that purpose. Prjevalski never appears to have seen this species 
in all his wanderings in Mongolia, the Valley of the Hoangho, 
Kansu, &c. Nor did Schrenk, Middendorff, or Radde meet 
with it apparently anywhere in Northern or Eastern, or South- 
Eastern Siberia. indeed the representative American form, the 
so-called Red-breasted Snipe (Macrorhamphus griseus) has been 
obtained in the extreme east of Siberia. Clearly we have yet 
to discover both the summer and winter head-quarters of this 
curious species, 
ABSOLUTELY nothing is nown of the haunts, habits, flight, 
voice, or food of this species; but we may surmise that, 
during the non-breeding season, it is chiefly to be found 
on or in the neighbourhood of sea coasts, as is the case 
with the Red-breasted Snipe of America. From its bill 
conspicuously: spatulate, and covered for the terminal inch 
with nerve pits and channels, indicating a bill more sensitive 
even than that of the Common Snipe, we may infer that it 
frequents soft mud flats and oozy ground. Its comparatively long 
and very pointed wings, together with the ample development 
of the pectoral muscles, indicate a rapid and powerful flight ; 
while as to its food the sensitive character of the bill shows 
that this is almost exclusively sought for beneath the surface, 
and will probably consist of worms, small sand-eels and soft- 
bodied crustacea. 
In shooting birds like the present species, Godwits, Curlew, 
Whimbrel and many others, along the mud flats that fringe our 
coasts, and almost fill many of our harbours, sportsmen should 
never forget the extremely treacherous character of these banks, 
and the dangers that attend incautious attempts to retrieve 
wounded birds. I have several times’myself, when walking on 
what appeared to be sound ground, with only about a foot of 
mud over it, suddenly sunk another foot or more, and once I 
went in right to my waist, and so remained helpless until drag- 
ged out, (leaving my boots behind) by the united efforts of two 
boats’ crews. But I might just as well have lit upon some 
deeper mud hole, where I should probably have sunk before aid 
could have reached me. 
Tickell tells how a boatman of his was all but lost on one 
of the mud banks in the Roopnarain, near the junction of 
that river with the Hooghly, and in my coast shootings I have 
had many stories told me of men who have thus perished. 
Tickell had dropped a bird on one of these banks. “ The 
