()0G SCOLOrAClD.E. 



often, before tliey can fly, larger than tlieir parents. Two 

 young ones are usually the number in a nest, but I have seen 

 three. The old birds are exceedingly attached to their off- 

 spring ; and, if any one ajiproach near the nest, they make a 

 loud and drumming noise above the head, as if to divert the 

 attention of the intruder." 



Mr. Salmon, who, with his brother, passed three weeks in 

 the Orkneys in the summer of 1831, observes, " We found the 

 Snipe in abundance in every island wherever there was the 

 least moisture ; and their nests, in general, were placed 

 among the long grass, by the side of the small lochs, and 

 amid the long heather that grows upon the sides of the hills." 

 Mr. Hewitson met with several nests upon Foula, the most 

 westerly of the Shetland Islands, among the dry heath on the 

 side of a steep hill, and at an elevation of not less than from 

 500 to 1000 feet above the marshy plain. 



Before tracing the Snipe into other countries, I may notice 

 that the nest is very slight, consisting only of a few bits of 

 dead grass, or dry herbage, collected in a depression on the 

 ground, and sometimes upon, or under the side of a tuft of 

 grass or bunch of rushes. The eggs, four in number, of a 

 pale yellowish or greenish white, the larger end spotted with 

 two or three shades of brown ; these markings are rather 

 elongated, and disposed somewhat obliquely in reference to 

 the long axis of the egg ; the length of the egg about one 

 inch six lines, by one inch one line in breadth. The feeding 

 ground of the Snipe is by the sides of land springs, or in 

 Avater meadows ; and in low flat countries they are frequently 

 found among wet turnips. A writer in the Magazine of 

 Natural History, describing their mode of feeding, as ob- 

 served by himself with a powerful telescope, says, " I dis- 

 tinctly saw them pushing their bills into the thin mud, by 

 repeated thrusts, quite up to the base, drawing them back 

 with great quickness, and every now and then shifting their 



