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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. VIII. 



the district, arriving during September and departing in April. 

 I have seen a solitary snipe on the 1st of September, and have 

 also flushed them in May, but they are most numerous from 

 November to February. During these months, sportsmen come 

 down to the district from Dikoya, Dimbula, and elsewhere, and 

 secure very large "bags," but much of this depends on the 

 weather. If very heavy rains have fallen, the fields in the 

 vicinity of streams become flooded, and the snipe leave for 

 higher fields, or betake themselves to the chena. These birds 

 show a strange partiality to particular localities ; thus I have 

 found in a small field of about an acre in extent, snipe congre- 

 gating both early and late, in the season, while the surrounding 

 fields have few, if any, in them. 



With regard to the migration of the species, I am inclined to 

 think that weather has much to do with it ; for even after a large 

 number have been in particular spots for a length of time, they 

 suddenly leave them for others, partly because of floods and 

 partly because of the condition of the field affording much or 

 little shelter or food, as the case may be. On moonlight nights 

 I have come upon numbers of Pin-tails in open chenas and dry or 

 disused paddy fields, and heard them fly off" with their peculiar 

 cry into the surrounding chenas. 



In 1877 I had the fortune to shoot a snipe with a nearly 

 full-sized egg in her, but I have never since either shot one 

 with egg, or have I seen or heard of the bird nesting in Ceylon, 

 though the above case is of considerable ornithological interest. 



I have heard of the real snipe ( G. scolopacina) having been 

 shot here, but this information I take very much cum grano, as 

 I believe it to be a rare visitor, and the confusion that appears to 

 exist in sportsmen's nomenclature as to snipe in general, renders 

 the occurrence to my mind the more doubtful. 



128. Tringoides hypolencus, the Common Sand-piper. Very 

 abundant at low elevations during the N.E. monsoon, during 

 which time it affects paddy fields and wet places, congregating in 

 flocks. 



129. Bubulcus coromandus, the Cattle Egret. Very com- 

 mon in the district about the elevations of from 2,500 feet down- 

 wards. It does not spend the whole year here, and in fact flocks 

 of these birds may be seen in the early mornings of the N.E. 

 monsoon making their way to fields, and returning with the 

 close of day. They fly in a perfect string, not unlike a distant 



