170 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



DISCOVERY OF THE NEST AND EGGS OF THE 

 AUSTRALIAN SNIPE. 



By A. J. Campbell. 



(Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, \Ath Feb.. 1898.^ 



The Australian Snipe, Gallinago australis, was first described by 

 Dr. Latham in 1801, and is sometimes known as Latham's 

 Snipe. All sportsmen are familiar with the " long-bills," but 

 little is known of their natural economy, while their nests and 

 eggs were only discovered last year, or nearly a century after the 

 birds themselves became known to ornithological science. 



Seebohm, in his splendid work, " The Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of Plovers, Sandpipers, and Snipes," states the 

 Australian Snipe " breeds in both islands of Japan, and passes 

 the Philippine Islands and the coast of China on migration to 

 winter (i.e., to escape the northern winter and really to summer) 

 in Australia and Tasmania." Colonel Legge observes that 

 although the Snipe passes over much latitude, its path is very 

 narrow, as it does not touch the China coast on its flight from 

 Japan to the north of Australia. 



The Japanese, who call the bird Yamashinja, take little 

 interest in the natural history of their country. That is one 

 reason why the nest and eggs remained so long undiscovered, 

 and why we know so little .of the domestic matters of this 

 feathered migrant, so full of interest to Australians. 



When Messrs. S. H. Rowe and J. Kelly, of the Customs 

 Department of Victoria, were deputed by the Government in 

 1894 to undertake a "Trade Mission" to the East, I very 

 naturally thought of Snipe, and Mr. Rowe kindly made a private 

 memorandum in his pocket-book. When he reached Japan Mr. 

 Rowe was introduced to Mr. Alan Owston, of Yokohama, the 

 only person there likely to procure Snipe's eggs. 



I corresponded with Mr. Owston for three years, till at length 

 he writes : — " I am the proud possessor of the eggs of Scolopax 

 (Gallinago) australis. I have had extraordinary trouble and 

 expense to obtain them. The birds breed on the grassy moor- 

 lands at the foot of Fujiyama at an elevation of 2,000 to 3,000 

 feet above the sea. Fujiyama is 12,500 feet high. I watched 

 them on the 28th April (1897), and on other dates during the 

 breeding season. When alarmed they fly round high overhead, 

 circling generally against the sun, and every now and again they 

 cry ' chip, chip, cheo, che-cheo,' and then rush downward at the 

 intruder, beating the air in their descent and making a terrific 

 rushing noise. When the weather is foggy and they come close 

 down the noise is so startling that it is some time before a nervous 

 person can get accustomed to it. Heard in the distance it may 

 be easily mistaken for the hard breathing of a railway engine 



