of Lakhimpur in the Kheri district, and it has been obtained in
the Nepal (formerly Oudh) Terai, further east. Beyond this
I have no record of its occurrence, till we come to the Garo
and Khasi Hills, where many have been shot ; and again a
blank till we reach the far end of the Assam valley, where in
the Dibrugarh district Colonel Graham tells mc he used yearly
to kill a few. Strange to say in Manipur * they appear to be
more common than in any other part of the Empire.
To the Nilgiris, Coorg, the Wynad, the Pulneys, Anamallist,
Sheveroys, and hilly parts of the Coimbatore District,
they appear as numerically scarce, but regular, visitants during the
cold season ; but neither Mr. Bourdillon nor any of his friends,
whom he consulted, seem to have met with it on the Assamboo
Hills, and its occurrence in Ceylon, though possible, indeed probable,
has not, I believe, been satisfactorily established.
Between its northern summer and southern winter homes, it
has, unlike the Woodcock, been very rarely met with ; but Colonel
McMastcr tells us that he twice shot it at Russelconda in
Gumsur. Blyth once obtained it in the Calcutta market, and Ball
met with it once in South Sirguja, (Chota Nagpur£).
To Burmah it also straggles. Colonel McMaster saw one killed
a few miles from Rangoon, and Davison flushed one near
Malewoon, at the extreme south of Tenasserim. Doubtless, as
time runs on, wc shall learn more of this species, and it will
prove to occur in many localities, such as Cachar, Sylhet,
Tippcra, Chittagong, and Arakan, &c, where, up till now, it has
remained unobserved. It has not yet been found, so far as I
can learn, anywhere outside our limits.
THE WOOD-SNIPE docs not, I think, as a rule, range nearly so
high as the Woodcock in the Himalayas; in the summer even
it is to be found as low as an elevation of six or seven thousand
* My poor friend Daman] wrote to me as follows:—" This bird I have only seen
in Manipur, where I shot several specimens ; all were killed in grass jungle from the
hpwdah It seems to be common there, as I killed five in one morning. It has a
very slow heavy flight and is easy to shoot. On the wing it is much more like a Woodcock
than a Snipe. It appears earlier than the Woodcock ; the first 1 killed was on
the 14th September,"
+ Mr Albert Theobald says :—
" I have shot this Snipe on the higher elevations of the Sheveroy Hills in the
Salem District, and on the Nilgiris. Annamallis, and Guddasal Hills in the
Coimbatore District. I have also heard of its being shot in the Wynad. It is a
winter visitant, coming and going at the same time as the Woodcock and is decidedly
rare.
" It affects swampy and boggy grounds covered with grass, and the moist and
dampsholasor belts of trees bordering the perennial streams, running down the
bottoms of ravines.
•• They are best flushed by good dogs, and are always seen singly ; seldom more
than four or five can be shot in a day even in the most favorable situation."
J Note also that Burgess, P. Z. S., 1S55, p. go, expresses a belief that Lieutenant
•Hoddam of the Engineers shot a specimen of this Snipe at Nassick, 90 miles or sc
iioiih-eesi of Bombay, 011 the 5th of January 1847.
feet, and I do not know that it is ever found much, if at all,
above 1 0 , 0 0 0 feet
It is so scarce and so accidentally met with that it is
impossible to say when exactly it migrates ; but I cannot learn
that it has been killed either on the Nilgiris or in the Sub-
Himalayan tracts earlier than the 1st of November. But
Damant shot one in Manipur on the 14th of September, and
I have a specimen killed in the Khasi Hills a little later in
September. Perhaps these eastern birds are not migrants from
the Himalayas at all, but breed in some of the hills there.
I have never seen two birds of this species within a quarter of
a mile of each other ; and though, having seen comparatively so
few, this goes for little, every sportsman I have consulted tells
me the same thing, vis., that, except in the breeding season, when
on rare occasions a pair have been flushed together, it is quite
unusual to meet with more than a single bird in the same place.
When down in the plains country their habits seem to be
different to what they are in the Himalayas, Nilgiris, &c.
Damant mentions (note p. 326) that he shot five from the howdah
in one morning, and the following remarks by Captain Baldwin
show that in the plains they become at times gregarious :—
" I have known," he says, " old sportsmen who have shot
all over the country, and have not seen, much less killed, one
of these birds. I have twice been fortunate enough to meet
with this Snipe ; once near the foot of the Himalayas I flushed
one from the corner of a marshy pool, but so suddenly that
I was unprepared, and before I could get my gun up he was
gone. I did not see another nemoricola for many years, till
when shooting in the Philibhit District in January 1872, I
came across not one, but over a dozen of these birds ; they
were close to one another. I was with my brother-in-law at
the time ; we had gone out one morning to shoot Snipe from
off the back of a pair of elephants we had with us, each in a
howdah. The marsh was covered with a very high kind of
rush, so that it would have been impossible to see sufficiently
well to shoot on foot.
"We soon put up several Common Snipe, and presently my
companion fired at one, and I then saw a large dark bird,
which I thought at the time was a solitary Snipe, rise with a
croak, and after curving about, drop close by. We went up,
and not one, but three rose—two of which fell to our shots.
We soon found several more, and nine were killed altogether ;
they offered the easiest of shots, and did not rise till the elephants
were close on them. They were particularly fine gamey
birds, and proved most excellent for the table."
They affect tiny swamps and morasses, on the hill sides or
in narrow valleys, but only those close to, or surrounded by,
tree or high bush or rmgal jungle, and in which there is at least
some small patch of good cover of rushes, bushes, or the like.