346 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



markable whether the bird is regarded as a melanism 

 of S. gallinago, or as a new and distinct species. 



Several examples have now been recorded in various 

 parts of England, and at least ten in Ireland, on the 

 authority of Mr. Thompson, including the original one 

 described by Mr. Vigors, which was shot in Queen's 

 county, on the 21st of August, 1822 ; and one now in 

 the Norwich Museum (No. 236), presented by Mr. 

 Alfred Newton, who procured it from the Museum 

 of Trinity College, Dublin, which at that time possessed 

 several other local specimens. An example recorded 

 and minutely described by Mr. Hearle Rodd, of 

 Penzance ("Zoologist," p. 7882), as having been killed 

 near Carnauton, in Cornwall, in January, 1862, was 

 examined, amongst other naturalists, by Mr. Gould, 

 whose previous opinion as to its want of specific distinc- 

 tion was confirmed by the appearance of fourteen tail- 

 feathers as in S. gallinago, and not twelve only as 

 described by Mr. Yigors, which agrees with Mr. Salvin's 

 account of the Norfolk bird ; and two specimens men- 

 tioned by Thompson in his "Birds of Ireland," had 

 each thirteen tail-feathers, having evidently lost one. 

 In this important point, therefore, the "black snipe" 

 resembles S. gallinago. Another alleged difference 

 between this bird and the common snipe, that it makes 

 no cry on being flushed, seems equally unfounded, as 

 Thompson states in his "Birds of Ireland" of two 

 birds shot ; one that rose with the common snipes did 

 not * squeak,' as the latter usually do when sprung, and 

 that after being once fired at, it perched quite near 

 again like a jack snipe. The other rose in company 

 with a common snipe, and uttered a similar cry, but 

 for which it would have escaped, as its colour led the 

 sportsman at first sight to believe it to be a water- 

 rail. 



Mr. J. E. Harting, who has examined no less than 



