248 BRITISH BIRDS. 



October ; but it passes through Central Germany and even Holland in 

 August and September, clearly showing that the birds which winter 

 furthest south breed furthest north. 



In its habits the Jack Snipe differs little from its commoner ally. It is 

 quite as fond of marshes, but is perhaps more often seen on the coast. It 

 is at all times as solitary, though one swamp may contain many scattered 

 birds of eitlier species. It sits as close or even closer than the Common 

 Snipe, but, unlike that bird, it gets up, with very rare exceptions, without 

 uttering a note. On the wing its fliglit is slower and more bat-like, but it 

 zigzags quite as much. Its food is probably the same. 



The egg of the Jack Snipe was one of the many great prizes which Wolley 

 brought home from his adventurous visit to Lapland. He made his head- 

 quarters at Muoniovara, opposite Muonioniska, on the frontiers of Sweden 

 and Russia, about halfway between the North Cape and the head of the Gulf 

 of Bothnia — a wild district of endless swamps, half water, half tussocks of 

 sedge, relieved only by forests of pine and birch, where the rising ground 

 secures them from being drowned out. He was out on the great marsh, 

 with his Finnish interpreters, on the 17th of June, 1853, when his attention 

 was arrested by the note of a bird with which he was unacquainted. One 

 can fancy the thrill of intense interest that passed through the intrepid 

 pioneer as the unfamiliar sound reached his ear. His servant suggested 

 that it might proceed from a Capercaillie in the pine-forest on the hills 

 beyond ; but he soon discovered that it came from a small bird, which was 

 careering at a wild pace high over the marsh. He describes the note as 

 clear and hollow — a quadruple note, not unlike the distant canter of a 

 horse over a hard hollow road — a weird note, which Naumann likens to 

 the monotonous click of the death-clock — the love-song of the Jack Snipe. 

 Wolley had never heard it before, and did not know what it was ; but 

 in the course of the day he found a nest which was strange to him. 

 So the next morning he returned to the great swamp, with a number of 

 natives to act as beaters. He ranged his men in a line, with bis Swedish 

 travelling-companion at one end, his Fiunish interpreter at the other, and 

 himself in the middle. Steadily they march across the swamp, a long line 

 of beaters, every eye on the qui vive for birds. After some hours' patient 

 marching, Wolley sees a bird get up, marks it down, finds the nest : it has 

 eggs in it — strange eggs ! Wollcy^s expectations are raised to the highest 

 pitch : he goes to the spot where he had marked the bird ; it rises, but 

 after a short low flight drops suddenly into cover. Wolley follows it ; 

 once more it rises, the gun is fired, the bird drops, and Wolley holds in 

 his hand a veritable Jack Snipe. It is impossible to describe the exul- 

 tation with which he looks at the eggs, now identified ; but a writer who 

 has stood over the nest of a Grey Plover or a Little Stint, with the bird 

 lying dead by the eggs, may be permitted to sympatliize with his joy. 



