GALLINAGO GALLINULA 115 



" It was not long after I first heard it that I ascertained that the 

 remarkable hammering sound in the air was made by the Jack 

 Snipe ; but I liave not yet quite satisfied myself whether the kcct-koot 

 Ixcct-koot on the ground, and the bad-du-aa in the air, which are 

 constantly to be heard in the same place, are made by one and the 

 same bird at different times. At a considerable heiglit it is not easy 

 to distinguish a Jack Snipe from another Snipe, and the clicking and 

 bleating seem to my ears exactly like the Common Snipe. However, 

 I did not find a single one of the latter bird in Iso or Kharto Uoma, 

 though I have met with one or two elsewhere in the neighbourhood. 

 Few of the country people recognise two kinds ; they consider that 

 all the sounds proceed from the same bird, the ' Ram of the 

 Heavens'; they take them for signs of the weather, or they adapt 

 them to words pretending to be the lamentations of transmigrated 

 girls, who have died in their maidenhood, and are bewailing their 

 hard fate : but the lads generally get the worst of it in a trial of wit 

 with their fair companions." 



(" The above written by Mr. Wolley from Muonoiovara, 27tli 

 November, 1854, to Mr. Hewitson, was by him printed, with a few 

 omissions — novy restored — in the third edition of his work.") 



"Mr. Wolley," adds Professor Newton, "subsequently satisfied 

 himself that the Jack Snipe did not bleat in the air or utter the keci- 

 koot call-note on the ground, those noises being exclusively due to 

 the Common species ; but both are called indifferently the Jeivaar 

 Jiiitrc, meaning the Earn' or, I believe, more strictly, the ' Wether 

 of the Heavens.' " 



The Jack Snipe commences breeding a good deal later than the 

 Fantail, and appears seldom to lay before the end of May, though I 

 have a clutch of eggs taken in Finland on the 21st of that month. 

 The majority of birds do not lay until the second or even third week 

 of June, and eggs may be found (vide Wolley above quoted) until well 

 on into July. Naturally the further north the breeding ground, the 

 later the Jack Snipe lays, and in the most southern portion of its 

 breeding area, late eggs of GalUnacjo gallinago may be taken on the 

 same ground and at the same time as the earliest eggs of Gallinago 

 gall inula. 



The nest consists merely of a few blades of grass, weeds or leaves 

 in some natural depression in the ground, but in a few instances they 

 are said to collect together a considerable amount of material, more 

 especially when the site selected is a wet one. As a rule, the nest is 

 placed in some wide-stretching fen on a small tussock or patch of 



