334? ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



sometimes three young ones and two old ones in the 

 nest, the scent was very powerful. From accident 

 of the season, these snipes were very late in being 

 hatched, for they usually fly before the middle of July; 

 but this year, even as late as the 15th of August, there 

 were many young snipes that had not yet their wing 

 feathers. Snipes are usually fattest in frosty weather, 

 which, I believe, is owing to this, — that in such wea- 

 ther they haunt only warm springs, where worms are 

 abundant, and they do not willingly quit these places, 

 so that they have plenty of nourishment and rest, both 

 circumstances favourable to fat. In wet open weather 

 they are often obliged to make long flights, and their 

 food is more distributed. The jack-snipe feeds upon 

 smaller insects than the snipe : small white larvae, such 

 as are found in black bogs, are its favourite food, but I 

 have generally found seeds in its stomach, once hemp- 

 seeds, and always gravel. I know not where the jack- 

 snipe breeds, but I suspect far north. 1 never saw 

 their nest or young ones in Germany, France, Hungary, 

 lUyria, or the British islands. The common snipe 

 breeds in great quantities in the extensive marshes of 

 Hungary and Illyria; but I do not think the jack-snipe 

 breeds there, for, even in July and August, with the 

 first very dry weather, many snipes, with ducks and 

 teal, come into the marshes in the south of Illyria, but 

 the jack-snipe is always later in his passage, later even 

 than the double-snipe, or the woodcock. In 1828, in 

 the drains about Laybach, in Illyria, common snipes 

 were seen in the middle of July. The first double- 

 snipes appeared the first week in September, when 

 likewise woodcocks were seen; the first jack-snipe did 

 not appear till three weeks later than the 29th of 

 September. I was informed at Copenhagen, that the 



