354 scolopacid;e. 



saw it, after a short low fligbt, drop suddenly into cover. 

 Once more it rose a few feet from where it had settled. I 

 fired ! and in a minute had in my hand a true Jack Snipe, 

 the undoubted parent of the nest of eggs ! In the course of 

 the day and night I found three more nests and examined 

 the birds of each. One allowed me to touch it with my 

 hand before it rose, and another only got up when my foot 

 was within six inches of it. The nest of the 17th of June, 

 and the four of the 18th of June, were all alike in struc- 

 ture, made loosely of little pieces of grass and cquisetum 

 not at all woven together, with a few old leaves of the dwarf 

 birch, placed in a dry sedgy or grassy spot close to more open 

 swamp." The Jack Snipe weighs about two ounces; its four 

 eggs are more than an ounce and a half. There are three 

 beautifully figured in Mr. Hewitsou's work. The eggs, so 

 disproportionate to the size of the bird, are of a yellowish- 

 olive, spotted and streaked with brown, the latter colour being 

 somewhat more predominant than in the majority of those 

 of the Common Snipe ; they are also somewhat smaller, 

 averaging 1'5 by 1 in. It is a late breeder, seldom having 

 eggs in Lapland, according to Professor Newton, before the 

 middle of June, and constantly breeding well into August. 



During the breeding-season the Jack Snipe is generally 

 distributed throughout Norway and Sweden, especially to the 

 north of the Arctic circle, and in Eussia it appears to nest 

 from the north to about the latitude of Moscow, but east of 

 Archangel it appears to be unfrequent in summer, and 

 Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie-Brown did not observe it on 

 the Petchora. It is a little doubtful if it breeds in the 

 extreme south of Sweden, or in Denmark ; there aj^pears to 

 be no authenticated instance of its doing so in Northern 

 Germany, and former statements as to its nest having been 

 found in Holland must be received with caution. Over the 

 rest of the Continent of Europe it is generally distributed on 

 migration and in winter, and during the latter season, in the 

 south especially, it is often very numerous : at times even 

 more so than the Common Snipe. Many winter in North 

 Africa, and birds have been observed in Egypt as late as 



