884 SNIPE 
The Snipe is fortunately too well known to need description, 
for a description of its variegated plumage, if attempted, would be 
long. It may be noticed, however, as subject to no inconsiderable 
variation, especially in the extent of dark markings on the belly, 
flanks and axillaries, while examples are occasionally seen in which 
no trace of white, and hardly any of buff or grey, is visible,—the 
place of these tints being taken by several shades of chocolate- 
brown. Such examples were long considered to form a distinct 
species, the S. sabinii, but its invalidity is now generally admitted. 
No fewer than 55 specimens of this abnormality have been reckoned 
by Mr. Barrett-Hamilton (Irish Nat. 1895, pp. 12-17), and every one 
as yet examined seems to be a bird of the year. Other examples 
in which buff or rust-colour predominates have also been deemed 
distinct, and to these has been applied the epithet russata. Again, 
a slight deviation from the ordinary formation of the tail, whose 
rectrices normally number 14, and present a rounded termination, 
has led to the belief in a species, S. brehm, now wholly discredited. 
But, setting aside two European species, to be presently noticed 
more particularly, there are at least a score, more or less nearly 
allied, belonging to various parts of the world, for no considerable 
territory is without its representative. Thus North America pro- 
duces G. delicata or wilsoni, so like the English Snipe as not to be 
easily distinguished except by the possession of 16 rectrices, and 
Australia has G. australis, a larger and somewhat differently 
coloured bird with 18 rectrices. India, while affording a winter 
resort to multitudes of the common species, which besides Europe 
extends its breeding-range over the whole of northern Asia, has 
the so-called Pin-tailed Snipe, G. stenwra, in which the number of 
rectrices is still greater, varying from 20 to 28, it is said, though 
22 seems to be the usual number. ‘This curious variability, deserv- 
ing more attention than it has yet received, only occurs in the outer 
feathers of the series, which are narrow in form and extremely stiff, 
there being always 10 in the middle of ordinary breadth. 
Those who only know the Snipe as it shews itself in the shoot- 
ing-season, when without warning it rises from the boggy ground 
uitering a sharp note that sounds like scape, scape, and, after a 
few rapid twists, darts away, if it be not brought down by the gun, 
to disappear in the distance after a desultory flight, have no con- 
ception of the bird’s behaviour at breeding-time. Then, though 
flushed quite as suddenly, it will fly round the intruder, at times 
almost hovering over his head. But, if he have patience, he will 
see it mount aloft and there execute a series of aerial evolutions of 
an astounding kind. After wildly circling about, and reaching a 
height at which it appears a mere speck, where it winnows a random 
zigzag course, it abruptly shoots downwards and aslant, and then 
as abruptly stops to regain its former elevation, and this process 
