JACK SNIPE. 43 



sometimes makes its nest in the marshes of Holstein and 

 Hanover. The Jack Snipe feeds upon smaller insects than 

 the Common Snipe : small white larvae, such as are found 

 in black bogs, are its favourite food, but I have generally 

 found seeds in its stomach, once hempseeds, and always 

 gravel." 



I saw eggs of the Jack Snipe in the Museum at Paris, 

 of one of which I have an exact drawing. The egg is of 

 a yellowish olive, the larger end spotted with two shades 

 of brown ; the length of the egg one inch three lines by 

 ten lines in breadth. Mr. Dann says the Jack Snipe is 

 far less numerous in Scandinavia than either of the two 

 preceding species, but frequents the same localities. It 

 however migrates south considerably later ; he has met 

 with them on the Dofre Fi-el as late as the end of Sep- 

 tember, after a frost of some days' duration with deep 

 snow, and has seen them at Lulea, on the Bothnian Gulph, 

 in October. They are not unfrequently to be met with 

 as late as November and December in Sweden. We are 

 indebted to the perseverance of Mr. John Wolley in Lap- 

 land for the most recent account of the nesting of the 

 Jack Snipe and its eggs. " We had not," says that gentle- 

 man, " been many hours in the marsh, when I saw a bird 

 get up, and I marked it down. The nest was found. A 

 sight of the eggs, as they lay untouched, raised my expecta- 

 tions to the highest pitch. I went to the spot where I had 

 marked the bird, put it up again, and again saw it, after a 

 short low flight, drop suddenly into cover. Once more 

 it rose a few feet from where it had settled. I fired, and 

 in a minute had in my hand a true Jack Snipe, the un- 

 doubted parent of the nest of eggs. In the course of the 

 day and night, I found three more nests and examined the 

 birds of each. One allowed me to touch it with my hand 

 before it rose, and another only got up when my foot was 



