SNIPE. 



697 



feed chiefly upon earth-worms, for at those times of 

 the year the number of other living creatures in the 

 sludge and mud is much less than during the warm 

 time of the year. In all probability it is from being 

 composed of earth-worms that the "trail," or contents 

 of the stomach of the woodcock, is reckoned so very 

 savoury a mess by the epicures ; for those gut-birds 

 which feed nearer the water, and consequently more 

 upon insects, larvae, and mollusca, are said to have the 

 trail tar inferior. This is a matter, however, which can 

 hardly be said to belong to the natural history of the 

 birds. We may farther mention, as indicative of the 

 fact that the woodcock is not an inhabitant so near 

 the water as the common snipe, that it has the tibiae 

 feathered down more closely to the tarsal joints. 



THE GREAT SNIPE (S. major} is not nearly so large 

 as the woodcock, not being above an inch longer 

 than the common snipe. It has the head of a deep 

 black colour, with three light stripes like those on 

 the common one ; the upper parts are black, and 

 pretty clear red, variously mottled together ; and the 

 under parts are reddish white, with some longitudinal 

 dusky streaks on the belly and flanks ; the shaft of 

 the first quill of the wing is white. This is a Euro- 

 pean bird, breeding in the north, and removing south- 

 ward in the winter ; but it belongs to the east of the 

 country as divided by the central heights, and thus 

 the grand line of its migration is that of the Black 

 Sea and the Archipelago, and not of the shores of the 

 Atlantic. It does come a considerable way to the 

 westward, and sometime?, but not very frequently, 

 straggles into Britain, but on its southward journey, 

 and not its northward one. It is a much heavier 

 bird than the common snipe in proportion to its lineal 

 dimensions, and therefore it is not so well suited for 

 very long migrations. The marshes of the northern 

 parts of Europe, to the east of the Baltic, are said to 

 be the places to which the greater number resort in 

 the nesting time ; and the economy of their nests 

 is said to be very much the same t as that of the 

 common snipe in our own marshes. It is possible, 

 however, and even probable, that it may be only a 

 climatal variety of the common snipe, for we believe 

 that it is not unusual for birds to be larger in size, and 

 more intense in colour, in the east of Europe than in 

 the west. Snipes are, altogether, rather puzzling 

 bird?, for they are so much concealed, that they may 

 be in many places where we never suppose them to 

 be ; and there may also be many species of them in 

 Europe, and even in Britain, which have not yet 

 been noticed. 



SABINE'S SNIPE ( Sabini). This is a species of 

 which we have the knowledge only of late years ; 

 and thus it is one of those that show us how careful 

 we ought to be of coming to hasty conclusions in the 

 case of birds of such hiding habits as the snipes. This 

 is a smaller bird than the common snipe, but with the 

 bill very considerably longer in proportion. The 

 general colour is brownish black, relieved by chestnut 

 and rust-colour on the margins of the feathers, which 

 give it a very rich, and, at the same time, a very 

 pleasing mottled appearance. It is a small species, 

 but a very pretty one, and has in some particulars 

 much more resemblance to the jack snipe than to the 

 common snipe. For instance, the feathers on the 

 tail of this one are twelve in number, the same as in 

 the jack snipe, while the common snipe has fourteen, 

 and the great snipe sixteen. This comparatively 

 limited number of feathers in the tail points out that 



the bird is one of hiding habits, and fond of conceal- 

 ing itself in the tall vegetation ; for, almost without 

 a single exception, birds which have broad tails 

 inhabit open places. Specimens of this snipe have 

 been met with in different parts of both Britain and 

 Ireland at such times as to show that it could hardly 

 have been a straggler from any migration ; and 

 therefore, if it is not a mere variety of the jack snipe, 

 which is not impossible, the probability is, that it is a 

 resident species breeding in some parts of the British 

 islands. 



THE JACK SNIPE (S. gallinuld) is a very pretty 

 little bird, only about half the volume of the common 

 snipe, that is, not more than two ounces in weight. 

 The bill is about two inches in length, and of a lead- 

 colour in the general part of its length ; but the tip 

 is black, and the culmen of the upper mandible is 

 horn colour ; the hides are dusky black ; the upper 

 part of the head is black, with very faint margins of 

 rust colour to the feathers ; there is no line on the 

 middle, but a yellowish streak on each side, with a 

 dusky one below it, and another pale coloured one 

 over the eye ; there is also a dark line from the angle 

 of the gape to the eye ; the back, the scapular 

 feathers, and the rump, are of rich green and purple, 

 varying in tint as the light falls differently upon it, 

 and the scapular feathers have buff margins, forming 

 two very conspicuous lines on the shoulders of the 

 bird, which run all the way from thence to the tail ; 

 the neck is marked with rusty brown and dusky, with 

 some cloudings of ash colour on the upper part ; the 

 coverts of the wings are dusky, marked with ash 

 colour and brown, and the quills are dusky ; the tail 

 is wedge-shaped, consisting of twelve feathers of a 

 dusky colour, but more or less clouded with rusty 

 red ; the under parts are nearly white ; and the legs 

 are of a greenish colour. 



There are few British birds concerning which there 

 have been more mistakes than the jack snipe. As is 

 the case with very many birds which, on account of 

 their dispersion over the wild parts of the country, 

 and their concealed habits during the breeding sea- 

 son, the common describers of birds cannot easily see 

 at those times ; the jack snipe has been packed off 

 " bag and baggage " to breed in the polar regions, 

 without sufferance to remain in any decently south- 

 ward climate during the summer. But it is one 

 thing to write a bird into the polar regions, and 

 another to send it personally there ; and there is no 

 truth in description, if the writer of this article has 

 not seen the jack snipe full fifty times and more, in 

 the reedy pools upon the first uplands of Britain many 

 times in the course of the summer ; and he once 

 caught it with hook and worm by the tangled bank 

 of a wild stream, at the head of a mill-pond, when 

 angling for quite another sort of game. The small- 

 ness of the bird, the lightness of its motions, and the 

 two lateral stripes on the back from the shoulders to 

 the rump, are not to be mistaken ; and thus the only 

 sound conclusion is, that, though this bird unquestion- 

 ably leaves the places near the sea, and moves into 

 the uplands in the summer, it breeds, and that in no 

 stinted numbers, within the country. The fact is, 

 that though the authorities, who have been generally 

 men of the south, or of the sea-coast, where the birds 

 do not breed, have represented the jack snipe as a 

 comparatively rare species, it is perhaps one of the 

 most plentiful of the whole genus, and one of the 

 most generally distributed over different countries. 



