GALLINAGO MEDIA. 175 
short sedge. Many of them held fifteen or a dozen Jacksnipe ; 
and the often-cited but imaginary individual who is said to 
have found a single Jacksnipe afford him sport for months, 
until his friend unluckily killed it, would here, indeed, have 
been in happy hunting-grounds. 
I could not ascertain any good local Andalucian name for 
this bird. I have heard some : but thev were so trivial and 
varied that I forbear to repeat them. The Jacksnipe is 
said occasionally to arrive in Andalucia towards the end of 
September ; but my two earliest notes of their arrival are the 
24th and the 27th of October near Seville. This species should 
properly stand in a different genus" [Lymnocryptes , Kaup) from 
the common Snipe ; but for the sake of simplicity I have 
placed them here together. 
245. Gallinago media. Leach. The Common Snipe. 
Moorish. Bou monkar (Father of the bill). Spanish. Near 
Gibraltar, Agachadiza ; further north, Agachona, 
Favier remarks that on the African side " the common 
Snipe is found very plentiful around Tangier from the month 
of October until February,'^ which may be said of it likewise 
as regards the Spanish side of the Straits ; and although better 
sport is to be had with this (in a sporting sense) king of birds 
on the Moorish side, the amusement is, as has been already 
stated, greatly reduced by the want of accommodation and 
utter absence of comfort ; not that there is much of the latter 
in many places on the Andalucian side. At Casa Vieja, Snipe 
sometimes arrive as early as the beginning of September. I 
have heard of a straggler during August; but the greater 
quantity do not put in an appearance till the end of October 
and the first week in November. They commence their de- 
parture in March ; and by the first week in April all have 
disappeared except a stray loiterer, perhaps a wounded bird. 
I once noticed one as late as the 3rd of May, having observed 
it for several days previously in the same situation, and would 
not shoot it, as I Avished to see how long it would remain : this 
bird did not appear to have any thing the matter with it. I 
never heard the drumming noise of the Snipe in Andalucia — 
