116 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



ground slightly higher than the surrounding fenland, and several 

 pairs of birds may be found breeding on the same swamp. Some- 

 times, however, the Jack Snipe lays its eggs at a considerable 

 distance from any actual swamp, and they have been found in hay- 

 fields or in strips of grass land which contain soft and muddy patches. 



The full complement of eggs laid is always four, as with other 

 snipes, and the eggs themselves are typical snipes' eggs in shape, 

 colouration and texture, but are extraordinarily large in proportion 

 to the size of the bird. A hen Jack Snipe, after laying her last egg, 

 seldom weighs more than 2 ozs., yet the weight of the four eggs is, 

 roughly speaking, about 1^ oz. 



As regards the few eggs in my collection and those in the British 

 Museum collection and elsewhere, I can see no difference in coloura- 

 tion between the eggs of GalUnugo gaUinagu and those of Gallinago 

 gallimila, but it has often been claimed for the latter that they are 

 more richly coloured on an average, and this may be the case when 

 a large series is taken into consideration. The ground colour is 

 generally a yellowish stone-colour, often tinged with green or grey, 

 or, less often, with reddish, and the markings consist of broad 

 blotches and spots of deep-brown, many almost black, with others 

 underlying them of dark purplish-grey. Occasionally these secondary 

 markings are paler and more washed-out in character, and are then 

 rather a lavender than purple-grey. The markings, both primary 

 and secondary, are generally more numerous at the larger end, being 

 sometimes almost entirely confined to this. In one pair in my col- 

 lection, which comes from Finland, the blotches form a broad ring 

 about the larger third of the egg, the markings on the smaller two- 

 thirds and inside the ring being but few in number and very small. 

 The texture is smooth and close, and usually there is a decided gloss ; 

 the shape is the ordinary pyriform or peg-top. 



Oates gives the measurements of the Jack Snipe's eggs as varying 

 between 1"4 and 165 inches in length, and between 1"05 and 1'13 

 in breadth. Dresser gives the average as 1'55 X 1'05 inches, and 

 those in my collection average 1'5'2 X I'OU. 



I fear that in Western Europe the Jack Snipe is becoming rarer, 

 and it is now difficult to obtain nests where twenty years ago the 

 breeding bird was almost common. 



