Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/184

168 which is 2½ inches long and perfectly straight. No other bird of the same size has such a beak. The Jack Snipe is a much smaller bird, and its beak is only 1½ inches long, but Jacks are not often seen on Bombay tables.

The word "Snippet" is not in the dictionary, but it is a word of very common use in India and may be defined as including any bird which purports to be a Snipe and is not a Snipe. There are many such, and since they are much easier to shoot than a real Snipe, they find their way more readily to the market and to the tables of those who buy their game. The butler calls them "Ishnap" and he gives the same name to Snipe, for he ignores the distinction. But, as I have already said, you may know them by their beaks; and you may know them by their flavour too, for beak and flavour are cause and effect in this case. The long beak of the Snipe is soft and sensitive at the point, being a peculiar instrument, wherewith the fastidious bird, probing the spongy mud, feels and draws out the tasty worm. Thus it grows fat and very savoury. The Snippet's bill is a pair of forceps merely, with which it picks up any vulgar fare that offers, small crab, or snail, or water-flea; and they impart to it their flavours mingled. Not that Snippets are to be despised. Some of them are very good eating. But they are not Snipe.

The majority of Snippets are either Sandpipers, Greenshanks, or Redshanks. There are three kinds of Sandpipers, of which the smallest is the commonest. Jerdon says it is the least common, but he knew little of this coast. Actitis hypoleucus, the Common Sandpiper, is a very familiar bird here, found beside