36 SCOLOPACIM. 



these birds to detect their prey the instant it comes in con- 

 tact with it, although placed beyond the reach of sight. 

 The food of the Snipe consists of worms, insects, small 

 shells with their animal inhabitants, and minute seeds ; 

 these last, perhaps, not picked up designedly, but swal- 

 lowed probably while adhering to the glutinous surface of 

 their more usual animal food. A Snipe that had been 

 slightly wounded iri the pinion, which was kept in confine- 

 ment for some time by Mr. Blyth, would eat nothing but 

 earth-worms ; and an interesting account of a tame Snipe 

 occurs in the Zoologist for 1847, page 1640. "When the 

 feeding-ground of the Snipes becomes limited by the 

 effects of frost and snow, the birds suffer greatly, and soon 

 become very thin. Many go still farther south. 



Miiller includes our Snipe among the birds of Denmark. 

 M. Nilsson says it is common in Sweden, where, however, 

 it is a migratory bird, appearing in March, and departing 

 soon after the end of the breeding-season. So numerous 

 are these birds in the marshes in the vicinity of Gothen- 

 burgh, that Mr. Lloyd, in his Field Sports of the North 

 of Europe, mentions having " bagged upwards of thirty 

 couple of Snipes in seven or eight hours." These were 

 either the Common, or the Double Snipe, Scolopax major, 

 as he was careless of wasting his powder and shot about 

 the Jack, or Half Snipe. Linneus, in the Journal of his 

 Tour in Lapland, says, under date of the 14th of May, 

 1732, when near Gefle, in the marshes, the note of the 

 Snipe was heard continually. Mr. Dann tells me the 

 Common Snipe is far more widely dispersed than the Great 

 Snipe. It breeds in extensive morasses and swamps in the 

 mountainous districts of Norway and Sweden, as well as 

 in the small mosses and bogs in the cultivated districts. 

 From Scona to Lapland, both eastern and western, it is 

 widely distributed. The eggs are generally three or four, 



