GREAT SNIPE 101 



Fall. — More frequently met with in the British Isles on the autumn 

 migration from the end of July to mid-November than in spring, 

 but probably frequently overlooked. By the beginning of August 

 the young are full grown normally, and gradually make their way 

 from the high north in Norway southward, the majority of migrants 

 taking an easterly course and only a small proportion moving south- 

 westward to the winter quarters. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Breeding range. — Norway, north to Tromso, Sweden, to latitude 

 65° N., formerly in Denmark but now extinct, as also in Schleswig. 

 It is said to have bred formerly in Holland and still does so in East 

 Prussia and eastward to Estonia, Finland, Russia, according to 

 Buturlin, up to latitude 63° near the Great Lakes, 65^° on the 

 White Sea, and Q7y 2 in the Petchora, while southward it is said 

 to breed in Bessarabia (Rumania) and in the Governments of Kieff, 

 Poltava, Kharkoff, and Voronsh, and to 5iy 2 ° N. in the Urals as 

 well as in the Caucasus. In Asia it breeds near Omsk, in the Altai 

 and the tributaries of the Ob, but not beyond the Yenesei or in East 

 Siberia. 



Winter range. — Cape Province, Natal, Transvaal (September to 

 March), Damara Land, Bechuana Land, Portuguese East Africa, 

 Southwest Africa, Persia, Turkestan, and India (once). 



Migration. — River Zambesi, Egypt (not uncommon), Alexandria, 

 etc., Algeria, Greece (April 23, May 7), Cyprus, Corfu (March), 

 Malta (March 30), Naples, Corsica (March 25), Valencia (October 

 9), Montenegro (April 15, 24), Asia Minor (May 9, Sept. 21), Fao, 

 Persian Gulf, Iraq (April, Aug., Sept.). 



Egg dates. — Formerly in Denmark from May 6 to June 8 (12 

 records), occasionally in July; in Scandinavia from end of May to 

 middle of July (10 records, June 13 to July 15). 



LYMNOCRYPTES MINIMUS (Brunnich) 

 JACK SNIPE 



Contributed, by Francis Charles Robert Jourdain 

 HABITS 



Sometime during the spring of 1919, probably in April, a speci- 

 men of this snipe was taken by a native on St. Paul Island, Pribilof 

 Islands, Alaska, and presented to G. Dallas Hanna. The bird is 

 now in the collection of the California Academy of Sciences, and 

 constitutes the only record for North America. It is, however, a 

 widely distributed species, breeding not only in Arctic Europe, but 

 54267—27 8 



