304 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



even females with males of the common species, is 

 altogether larger, and its general contour is expressively- 

 rendered by the term " woodcock snipe," as applied to 

 it in some parts of the United Kingdom. 



Mr. Gould, contrary to the statement of many authors, 

 speaks positively as to the male of the common snipe 

 being larger than the female, having arrived at that 

 conclusion after dissecting a large number of specimens, 

 and this rule, no doubt, applies to the great snipe as 

 well. His drawing, also, of the great snipe in his 

 (( Birds of Great Britain," exhibits the marked difference 

 in plumage between the adult and immature plumage 5 

 the old birds having the four outer tail feathers on 

 each side pure white, crossed with two or three bars 

 of square black patches, on the outer webs only, from 

 about the centre to the base of each feather ; and the 

 secondaries and wing-coverts are also margined with 

 conspicuous bands of white. From these markings, 

 which are wanting in the young birds (their tail feathers 

 being crossed with various shades of brown),* I am 

 enabled to state positively that with very rare excep- 

 tions indeed, the great snipes killed in this county are 

 all in immature plumage ; most probably birds of the 

 year. I have never seen more than two adult birds 

 obtained on our eastern coast, one in my own posses- 

 sion, killed at Eockland, on the 17th of August, 1859, 

 which was brought to me by a Norwich birdstuffer as 



* Yarrell states that the "young birds in their first autumn 

 have short beaks, and fewer, if any, white outside tail feathers ;" 

 but an immature male bird in my collection, which weighed seven 

 and a half ounces, has the outside tail feathers barred across both 

 webs almost to the tips, which are white ; and the beak measures 

 two inches and five-eighths; if anything exceeding the length 

 of the beak in my adult specimen, also a male. The beak in an 

 adult female of the common snipe, shot from the nest, measures 

 a little over two inches and five-eighths. 



