JACK SNIPE. 339 
course of the day, the bag amounting to fifteen couples 
of jacks,* which, 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’ eges brought to him ;+ 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 week in April, and in cold backward 
seasons as late as the 24th,{ or even into the following 
* Mr. J. H. Gurney informs me that 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. 
+ Mr. Lubbock, in his communication to Yarrell, remarks, 
“The eggs which have once or twice been offered 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 Norfolk, though eggs may 
have been found dropped at random by those birds before quitting 
our shores. 
{ 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 
