COMMON SNIPE. 333 



of specific distinction, but this is not, I imagine, at 

 all likely. 



Scolopax brehmi having the two outer tail feathers 

 somewhat elongated, of which an example in Mr. J. 

 H. Gurney's collection was shot some years back, at 

 Earlham, near Norwich, is now, I believe, considered 

 to be merely a common snipe, with the middle tail- 

 quills not grown to their full length. 



Pied and other varieties are met with at times. A. 

 very beautiful specimen, resembling in appearance the 

 buff-coloured woodcock described at p. 295, was shot 

 at Guestwick in December, 1851. The ground colour in 

 this bird was pure white ; the usual markings being 

 delicately traced in light and dark shades of buff,* 

 with the beak and legs pink instead of green. Another 

 curiously marked snipe, having the head and neck 

 white, streaked and dotted with dark brown and 

 yellowish markings, the remainder of the plumage of 

 the usual tint, interspersed with white feathers, and 

 the legs and beak yellowish white, was killed in this 

 county in December, 1856. Again, in the autumn of 

 1866, as I am informed by Mr. Anthony Hamond, jun., 

 a pure white snipe was killed on Walton Common, 

 when the Prince of Wales, with other sportsmen, was 

 shooting over that part of the Westacre estate. This 

 very interesting specimen is now preserved at Sand- 

 ringhain Hall. Messrs. Gurney and Fisher have also 

 recorded a singular malformation of beak in this species, 

 a snipe examined by them having had the beak "for 



* Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., has recorded in the " Zoologist " for 

 1868 (p. 1459), a somewhat similar variety in his own collection, 

 which was purchased by Mr. Gatcombe, of Plymouth, in Leaden- 

 hall Market, about the 3rd of September. " It is fawn coloured, 

 retaining, however, all the zigzag mottling of the normal plumage, 

 but so faint as to be hardly discernible." 



