GALLINAGO NIGRIPENNIS. 677 
rains, though probably never very numerous. He writes :—‘'The 
best bag I have ever known to be made was thirteen couple. I 
myself once killed eight couple, but these are exceptionally good 
bags. I once found a nest and eggs of this species.” Mr. Ayres 
has met with it in Natal, and Mr. ‘I’. 8. Buckley shot a specimen near 
Pietermaritzburg. Majors Butler and Feilden and Captain Reid 
write as follows: “‘Not numerous in the ‘vleys’ till the middle 
of June, when they came in abundantly, ten couple being several 
times bagged by a single gun. They must breed from about 
December to March, for Butler heard of a nest containing fresh 
eggs taken at Mount Prospect in February, and of young birds 
being seen in the same locality in April.” 
Mr. Ayres writes: “Though not plentiful in Natal, these 
Snipe are extremely so in the swamps surrounding the town of 
Potchefstroom, in the Transvaal, where they afford excellent 
shooting, and also breed during the months of July and August. 
At this season the cock birds are a great deal on the wing— 
evidently wooing. They fly about like so many Swallows—rising 
in the air, and descending with a rapid sweep and beat of the wings 
to within a few feet of the ground, then rising again and repeating 
the movement, at the same time making a curious, loud, vibratory, 
rushing noise, which I once heard as late as midnight on a still 
moonlight night. The cock birds on the ground almost incessantly 
utter a loud ‘chuck, chuck.’ The hen birds are pretty silent and 
quiet, merely rising with the usual sharp ‘quirk.’ I find a great 
difference in the size of the females, those that are laying being 
much larger than those that are not.” 
On one occasion the same gentleman states that he shot a female 
bird in mid-air, in the act of making that curious neighing noise 
with the rapid beat of the wings which, till then, he always thought 
was produced by the cock bird only. On its nesting in the 
Transvaal he observes as follows: “ Breeds plentifully in the 
swamps around Potchefstroom, principally in August. The bird 
sits exceedingly close, and the nests are not easily found; they are 
placed or rather formed in a stool or clump of grass, in the centre 
of which the bird treads down the finer blades, and thus forms a 
sufficient cavity, well surrounded and concealed by the outer blades, 
which curve over and afford both shade from the sun and shelter 
from the cold winds.” 
