OP THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 289 



Genus GALLINAGO, or Snipes. 



Type, GALLINAGO MAJOE. 



GallinagO, of Leach (1816). The birds comprising the present genus are 

 characterised by having the culmen longer than the metatarsus (twice its length) 

 and the long innermost secondaries equal in length to the primaries. The bill is 

 long and straight, swollen laterally, and softened towards the tip, which is rugose 

 or pitted. The nostrils are lateral, basal, and covered with a membrane. The 

 black or dark markings on the head are longitudinal, not transverse as in the 

 birds in the preceding genus. The number of rectrices varies to an enormous 

 extent from fourteen in the common British species to twenty-six in Gallinago 

 stenura ! The summer and winter plumage are similar in colour. Sternum, as 

 far as is known, abnormal, with two notches only in the posterior margin. 



This genus is composed of twenty-two species and subspecies, and may be 

 described as almost cosmopolitan in distribution. Two species are British, one 

 of which breeds within our Islands, and the other is a somewhat rare visitor, 

 chiefly in autumn. 



The Snipes are dwellers in marshes and woodland swamps. They are birds 

 of rapid, powerful, and well-sustained if somewhat erratic flight, and run and 

 walk with ease. They are more or less nocturnal in their habits. Their notes 

 are loud, some of them not unmusical. They subsist on worms, insects and 

 larvae, etc. They make slight nests on the ground and their pyriform eggs are 

 four in number and double-spotted. They are monogamous. They are almost 

 solitary, never gregarious, save perhaps during migration or courtship. Their 

 flesh is highly esteemed for the table. 



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