For snipe the best time is from December to February, though I have shot odd birds as early as October and as late as April. Both the full and the jack snipe are to be met with, their favourite feeding-grounds being the rice-stubbles immediately after the crops have been harvested, and before the ground has had time to get hard and dry. In the cold weather, however, almost any wet patch—and there are numerous small bogs at the lower ends of the paddy-fields and alongside leaky irrigation channels—will yield one or two couple. Formerly there was a very useful bit of ground at Ain el Tawîl, but the best place of all is close to the village of Gennâh, where a reedy bog of considerable size at times positively swarms with snipe. This place is rather difficult to shoot, and I used to consider I had done well if four or five couple were gathered. Pools of various size, formed by drainage waters from the cultivated lands, are found scattered throughout the oasis, and in the early morning or late evening hours quite a respectable bag of wild-fowl can sometimes, with a little luck, be secured. I say sometimes advisedly, as where duck are concerned one has to compete with the local sportsmen, whose name is legion. Mallard, teal, and shoveller ducks are the most common, though several of the other species commonly found in the Nile Valley are also to be met with in the oasis. The keenness of the Kharga sportsmen is well illustrated by the following incident: Encamped on one occasion for a week or two near the village, I was in the habit of pottering about of an evening with my gun, visiting the two or three pools within easy walking distance of the tents; but although there were a good many wild-fowl about, these had been worried to such an extent that they only remained on the ponds during the darkest hours of the night, preferring, indeed, to pass the day in solitude in the open desert than to turn themselves into targets for the never-ending practice of the local Nimrods. Thinking to get the better of both duck and natives, I made arrangements to visit a pool about three miles distant from the village, starting at an hour early enough to enable me to take up a good stand before daybreak. Fortified by biscuits and hot cocoa, I and my faithful retainer, Mohammed Abu Salem, left camp one chilly morning about three, riding the best part of the way on camels, over the roughest country imaginable. Half a mile from the pool we dismounted, and I proceeded alone on foot across cultivated lands, on which, to my astonishment, ploughing was already in progress, though it was still dark, wanting a full hour to dawn. Slowly and with some difficulty I made my way towards the thin streak of light that I knew marked the position of the pool, which in my mind’s eye I already pictured as covered with duck. Presently, to my surprise and disgust, a shot rang out; but this was nothing to my astonishment a few moments later, when, just as I was getting