NESTING. 237 



or in pairs. Once in a time, it is true, three or four are 

 found nearly together ; but these constitute, I imagine, a 

 family ; or it may be the locality affords more than usual 

 attractions. In other respects its habits would seem 

 greatly to assimilate to those of the Common Snipe. " It 

 feeds," says Sir Humphry Davy, " on smaller insects 

 than the »S'. Gallinago: small white larvae, such as are 

 found in black bogs, are its favourable food ; but I have 

 generally found seeds in its stomach, ^ — once hempseed, and 

 always gravel." 



Some few Jack Snipes nest, as said, in the midland 

 and southern portions of Scandinavia, and a pair or two, 

 there was every reason to suppose, at no very great 

 distance from Eonnum.* But the great breeding-grounds 

 of these birds, so far as Scandinavia is concerned, I believe 

 to be amongst the Norwegian f and Lapland mountains, 

 especially the latter — whence, of late years, very many 

 of their eggs have been sent to this country — and often 

 at an elevation of several thousand feet above the level 

 of the sea. 



According to KjfcrboUing, the female makes her nest 

 in a marsh, and lays four eggs, which arc shorter and 



■"' Whea duck-sliooting two or three years ago ou Kollands-O — a large 

 island ill the Weiiern, thirty to foity miles to the uoi-th of Eonnuiii — I was 

 informed Tiy my companion, M. Teuckler, that the Jack Snijie most certainly 

 nests there ; that he has on several occasions shot the young birds when 

 hardl}' ahle to fly, and with liloo<l-feathei'S still in their wings; and that his 

 dog has caught others. 



+ " In Southern Norway," so Professor Rasch writes me, " I 

 have not found the Jack Snipe breeding ; but doubtless such is the case, 

 as I have shot it in Gulbrandsdalen during the first days of August. A few 

 pairs are said to nest on the extensive Fjeldmyr, or alpine morass, between 

 Fogstuen and Jerkin, on the Dovre-fjeld. According to M. Earth, it breeds 

 in the Lofoden islands, and the Reverend M. Sommerfeldt observed it iu 

 East Finniark in 1857, where it nests in niar.shy ground, inteivectcd by 

 rivulets, in the willow region." 



