12 » The Irish Naturalist. 



SABINE'S SNIPE. 



GAI.I.INAGO COEI.ESTIS, VAR. SABINII. 

 BY G. K. H. BARRETT- HAMII^TON. 



On August 2ist, 1822, a Snipe was shot near Portarliugton, 

 Queen's County, by the Rev. Charles Doyne, and was described 

 by N. A. Vigors as Scolopax Sabiiii {Trans. Limi. Soc, vol. 

 xiv, p. 556). Vigors distinguished his bird from the Common 

 Snipe {S. gallinago) by its colour, by its possession of only 

 twelve (instead of fourteen) tail-feathers, by the two exterior 

 toes being "united to the base for a short distance," by the 

 tarsi being ^^^ of an inch shorter than those of 6*. gallinago, and 

 by the greater stoutness of the tarsi. 



Subsequently, additional specimens of Sabine's vSnipe were 

 obtained, chiefly in Ireland, so that in 1850, William Thompson 

 (Nat. Hist, of Ireland, vol. ii, pp. 273 — 277) was able to give 

 notes of ten Irish specimens, while a few others had been 

 procured in England, but in Scotland none at all. The bird 

 had now become, in the words of Thompson, "one of the 

 greatest puzzles in Ornithology," since it was not known out 

 of the British Islands, and there only as one of which a few 

 individuals had fallen before the guns of snipe-shooters : of 

 its breeding haunts absolutely nothing had been ascertained. 



Enough specimens had now been obtained to enable 

 naturalists to suspect that the structural characters laid down 

 by Vigors as distinguishing Sabine's from the Common Snipe 

 were somewhat unreliable, and Thompson {pp. cit.), though he 

 gave the bird rank as a species in his work, was compelled to 

 confess that for some time past he " had not felt altogether 

 satisfied respecting its distinctness as a species." After show- 

 ing the invalidity of Vigors' structural characters, he remarks 

 that in colour Sabine's Snipe " is peculiar and constant." 

 Every specimen of S. Sabini that had occurred was coloured 

 much alike, and was remarkable by " the total absence of white 

 from its plumage, or of any of those lighter tints of ferruginous 

 yellow which extend more or less in stripes along the head 

 and back "of the other European Snipes." 



In the works of later writers, Sabine's Snipe is regarded 

 merely as a melanic variety of the Common Snipe. I think, 

 however, that it presents several points of interest, which 

 are well worth the attention of naturalists. 



