Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/183

Rh about in search of refreshments. Strange birds are in that crowd sometimes. Not far from Hog Island I have seen a Flamingo in the same field, I think, in which I shot a Merganser another year. Are all these to be reckoned as birds of Bombay? Five or ten miles are nothing to them, and there is not one of them of which it can safely be said that it will not be found on our island. But to describe half of them would defeat the very purpose of these papers, which is not to perplex, but to help the sedentary Bombayite, who is not a naturalist nor a sportsman, nor a murderer under any name, so that he may recognise the birds that he sees as he takes his morning walk, drives to office, sits in his garden, or enjoys a sail in the harbour. The best way perhaps to accomplish this in the case of the waterfowl will be to notice chiefly the family features by which one may know to which clan to refer any fowl he may see, and only to describe separately those species which are likely to attract attention, either by their commonness or on some other account.

Snipe are shot on the Flats every year, but these papers are not for shooters, and the chief peculiarity of the Snipe is that it is rarely seen except by those who seek its destruction. It feeds in secret, where grass and rushes grow in soft mud or shallow water, and does not fly till forced. Then it flies indeed. This constitutes its value for purposes of "sport." Those who are not sportsmen do indeed see it sometimes under other conditions, when it reclines on a bed of toast, with its poor beak thrust through its own ribs and its footless legs pointing at the ceiling. To recognise it then you need only look at its beak