338 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
snipes, jacks never rise in “wisps,” but, as shown by 
the number I found myself, all gathered together 
within a very small space, they certainly congregate on 
the ground. As a further proof, also, of the inde- 
pendent action of this species, I could give many 
instances of their being found in numbers, almost 
exceeding the largest flights of the “whole” snipes; at 
times, also, when not a single bird of the larger species 
has been seen in the day. Yet, as a rule, perhaps 
Thompson’s* estimate is not far wrong that jacks are 
“in the proportion of about one fourth of the common 
species.” Mr. Lubbock states that “in October, 1824, 
in two days’ shooting, thirty-seven snipes were killed 
by a friend, only five of which were “whole” snipes, 
and that later in the same month nineteen jack snipes 
were shot in one morning, and only one opportunity 
afforded of firing at a “whole” bird. When thus 
abundant it is evident that any one accustomed to the 
flight of a jack snipe will make a much larger bag than 
it would be possible to do with the larger species, which, 
rising several at a time and not waiting to be “ walked 
up,” have the chances much in their favour. About the 
year 1845, Mr. Rising, of Horsey, with a friend, killed 
in his own marshes thirty-five couples of jack snipes. 
His companion, however, did not arrive till about eleven 
o'clock, by which time Mr. Rising had bagged ten 
couples and a shorteared owl, missing only one or two 
shots. Even more might have been killed had they 
continued shooting. On two or three other occasions 
he has met with similar extraordinary flights of jacks, 
and remembers when a very young sportsman, shooting 
away a pound of powder and cleaning his gun in the 
* See Thompson’s “ Birds of Ireland” (vol. ii. p. 278) for the 
returns of a snipe-shooter’s bag, in the nighbourhood of Belfast, 
from 1835 to 1842 inclusive. In the north of Ireland he considers 
that jack snipes have greatly increased of late years. 
