GKEAT SNIPE. 301 



Norwich. Museum, is only an unusual variety of the 

 common snipe's. Mr. Alfred Newton, to whom I recently 

 forwarded it for comparison with his fine series of eggs, 

 both of the great and common snipe, remarks, " I can 

 nearly match it as to colour and entirely as to size 

 by common snipes' eggs in my collection, while it is 

 considerably smaller than any great snipe's I have. 

 I can scarcely doubt its being a common snipe's, the 

 slight difference in colour from mine being owing, 

 probably to exposure to light or air, or both." The 

 great snipe also breeds much later than the common 

 species;* besides, as before stated, being extremely 

 rare, as a spring migrant. 



Mr. Lubbock, in his "Fauna," as well as in 

 notes supplied to the late Mr. Yarrell, gives some 

 interesting particulars of this bird from his own 

 observations. In flight, he says, "it does not appear 

 strikingly larger than the common snipe, which it does 

 not much exceed in length from bill to tail, or extent 

 of wing; its bulk is the effect of high condition. Of 

 many fresh specimens which I have examined, all, 

 without exception, were lumps of fat. One which I 

 shot burst from the fall. In rising it may at once 

 be distinguished from the common snipe by the tail, 

 which spreads out like a fan, and shows a great deal 

 of white. It lies until nearly trodden upon, and its 

 flight is slow and heavy. A drier marsh seems to 

 content it than those which the snipe and jack snipe 

 delight in. But this may arise in some degree from 

 the early period at which they arrive." The term 

 " solitary" he considers as misapplied to this species, 



* Mr. Hoy, who found many of their nests in Holland, describes 

 them as breeding early in May; and the Rev. H. B. Tristram 

 found them breeding in great numbers in marshy swamps, 

 near Bodo, in Nordland, in the early part of the summer. See 

 Hewitson's " Eggs of British Birds," 3rd ed., vol ii. 



