JACK SNIPE. 339 



course of tlie day, tlie bag amounting to fifteen couples 

 of jacks,* wliicli, with good shooting, might have been 

 doubled. In these instances, also, " whole " snipes 

 were either very scarce or altogether absent. 



In spring the jacks and " whole " snipes make their 

 appearance about the same time, and, as Mr. Lubbock 

 remarks, " are often found in pairs for a fortnight pre- 

 vious to their departure ; and at that period they 

 occasionally emit a feeble piping note when flushed." 

 Notwithstanding, however, their late stay with us at 

 times in the spring, particularly with a prevalence of 

 north-easterly winds, and the fact that stragglers have 

 been met with during the summer months, there seems 

 no reason to suppose that the jack snipe has ever bred 

 in Norfolk, even though the late Mr. Stephen Miller, of 

 Yarmouth, is stated by Messrs. Paget to have had jack 

 snipes' eggs brought to him ;t and Yarrell in his paper 

 on our British snipes in Loudon's " Magazine " (vol. ii., 

 p. 144), says of the jack snipe in Norfolk, it "has been 

 known (though very rarely) to breed in our marshes." 

 It is by no means unusual to observe jack snipes 

 hanging for sale in the Norwich Market, between the 

 first and second ^eek in April, and in cold backward 

 seasons as late as the 24th, J or even into the following 



* Mr. J. H. Grurney informs me tliat on one occasion he looked 

 over a large hamper of snipes from Cornwall, in Leadenhall 

 Market, which, as far as he examined them, were all jacks. 



f Mr. Lubbock, in his communication to Yarrell, remarks, 

 " The eggs which have once or twice been oftered to me as 

 those of the jack snipe were those of the purre, and I regret I can 

 say nothing in favour of its breeding in Norfolk." The purre or 

 dunlin, however, does not breed in ISTorfolk, though eggs may 

 have been found dropped at random by those bu'ds before quitting 

 our shores. 



J Mr. Harting informs me that on the 14th of April, 1868, he 

 flushed two jack snipes on a heath at West Harting, in Sussex, 

 2x2 



