SCOLOPACID/K. 



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THE RED-BREASTED SNIPE. 

 Macrorhamphus griseus (J. F. Gmelin). 



The occurrence of this American species in Great Britain was 

 first noticed by Montagu, who described and figured — under the 

 name of Brown Snipe — a bird killed in Devonshire in October of 

 some year prior to 1802, and now in the British Museum. Two 

 more specimens are said to have been procured in the above county, 

 and one has been shot in the Scilly Islands ; Middlesex has pro- 

 duced two, Norfolk three, Lincolnshire one (on August 15th 1882), 

 Lancashire one (now in the Preston Museum); and on the Cumber- 

 land side of the Solway a young bird, afterwards in Heysham's 

 collection, was taken on September 25th 1S35. All these have been 

 obtained in autumn, and most of them in the month of October. 

 In Scotland, according to Gray, one was shot near Largo in 

 September 1867, and a bird which has been correctly identified is 

 said to have been killed in Lanarkshire. There are some other 

 records which are open to question. In Ireland no example has 

 yet been met with. 



On the mainland of Europe the Red-breasted Snipe has only been 

 found in Picardy and Normandy ; while on the other side of the 

 North Atlantic it is of rare occurrence in the South of Cireenland. 

 It breeds on the vast morasses round Hudson Bay, and about as far 

 south as lat. 44°, migrating along the east coast ; but west of the 



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