104 BULLETIN" 142, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the next. On the north side of the trickle the ground rose slowly to the full 

 height of the ridge again, perhaps a yard above the marsh-level. Midway up 

 the little slope, on a dry bit of ground, a few stalks of scrub-birch partially 

 shielded the jack snipe from view as it sat on the nest by the side of a cloud- 

 berry plant. Not that shelter was needed. The nest would never have been 

 found had my foot not happened to drop within a few inchesi of it. Then 

 away the bird flew, with a low, almost direct flight, without any sudden twists 

 for some twenty yards, then down into the marsh. When flushed it disappeared 

 from view into the marsh and was not seen again until within a few feet of the 

 nest. Once, when spotted a couple of yards away, it covered that short distance 

 a foot at a time, crouching down for a few seconds between each very short 

 journey ; then, still crouching, it covered the eggs and remained motionless. 



The nest was found on June 12th, 1926, and it then contained four eggs. 

 The last time I inspected it was on July 6th, when the eggs were cracking at 

 their larger ends. 



Eggs. — The eggs are extraordinarily large for the size of the bird, 

 being but little smaller than those of the common snipe {Capella 

 gallitiago) . They are, as a rule, more or less distinctly pyriform and 

 are normally four in number. The ordinary types vary in ground 

 color from " chamois " to " cream buff " in the buff types and " olive- 

 lake " or " corn -olive " to " olive-buff " in the green types. As a rule, 

 the markings are somewhat smaller and more uniformly distributed 

 than in common snipes' eggs. They are in some shade of light or 

 dark brown, such as " tawny," " russet-vinaceous," " chocolate," 

 " liver," or " chestnut brown " ; the underlying markings, which are 

 numerous and conspicuous in some cases, are in various shades of 

 " purple drab " or " drab-grey." The spiral smears, so frequently 

 found in common snipes' eggs, seem to be absent from those of the 

 jack snipe, and, though there are some cases of wide variation in 

 coloring, a series will be found to be browner and less bold in mark- 

 ings than a corresponding number of the common species. The meas- 

 urements of 146 eggs average 38.53 by 27.37 millimeters; the eggs 

 showing the four extremes measure 44.5 by 28.5, 40 by 30, 35 by 27 and 

 38 by 25.5 millimeters. Bey (1905) states that the shells are some- 

 what thinner and lighter than with the common snipe and gives the 

 average weight as 660 grams. 



Plumages. — The downy plumage is described by Dresser (1871) as 

 follows, from a nestling obtained at Muonioniska : 



Entire upper parts richly varied, deep rufous and black, dotted here and 

 there with white ; a buffy white streak passes from the forehead over the eye ; 

 below this is a dark-brown streak covering the lores to the eye ; from the base 

 of the lower mandible another white streak passes below the eye and one also 

 from the chin (which is buffy white) along the side of the head to the nape ; 

 underparts dark-reddish brown, slightly varied with blackish brown ; bill and 

 legs much developed. 



For descriptions of subsequent plumages and molts the reader is 

 referred to "A Practical Handbook of British Birds," edited by H. F. 

 Witherby (1920). 



