JACK SNIPE. 335 



about the middle or end of September, altliough strag- 

 glers liave been occasionally observed at an earlier date. 

 Mr. Lubbock states that on the 1st of August, 1833, he 

 saw a jack snipe, killed on Barton Fen. " The bird was 

 in good plumage and condition," and he believed it had 

 " migrated earlier than its wonted time." In 1831 

 he* saw a couple that had been shot on the 12th of 

 September, and he has seen others as early as the 8th. 

 I have also notes of a couple seen by myself in 1852, 

 which had been shot at Barton on the 14th of Sep- 

 tember.'^ As with the common snipes, however, the 

 jacks are most plentiful, and more generally dispersed 

 during October and November ; and though the larger 

 number may take their departure during severe weather, 

 yet even more in proportion than the common snipes, 

 resort during prolonged frosts to our inland springs and 

 water-courses, where, in certain sheltered nooks, they 

 are always found in high condition. Whether less 

 susceptible of cold, owing to their sluggish habits 

 and rapid tendency to fatten, this species is certainly 

 hardier than its more active kmdred ; for on more than 

 one occasion I have flushed several couples of jacks 

 from the open marshes at Surlingham, when a frost, of 

 two or three days' duration, had driven all the "whole" 

 snipes from that neighbourhood. Upon this habit of 

 taking the rough with the smooth, and still getting 

 fat under trying circumstances, Mr. Lubbock aptly 

 remarks, " a driving wind, intermixed with sleet, often 

 sets all the "whole" snipes upon a range of marsh in 

 motion. They are perpetually changing place, and 

 fly in small parties round and round, shrieking out 



* In the " Zoologist" for 1868 (p. 1029), Mr. Cordeaux records a 

 jack snipe as shot by himself in a turnip-field, in ITorth Lincoln- 

 shire, on the 26th of September; and another correspondent 

 (p. 1059), states that on the 24th of August, of the same year, he 

 flushed a jack snipe in some water meadows, near Dorchester. 



