230 SYSTEMATIC CATALOGUE. 



SABINE'S SNIPE, Scolopax SaUni. So named 

 by Mr. Vigors the first describer of the species 

 in 1822, in compliment to the late Mr. Sabine, 

 then the Secretary of the Zoological Club. 



On the 5th of March, 1845, Serjeant Carter, 

 of Chichester, to whose frequent success I have 

 already alluded (vide Bee-eater), shot a very fine 

 example of this, the rarest bird, perhaps, in the 

 world. Tt rose from the banks of a stream 

 called the Lavant, at Appledram, near Chichester 

 Harbour. It did not utter a cry like the common 

 snipe a fact which coincides with the previous 

 observation of Colonel Bonham. Only six in- 

 stances of its occurrence are on record, and all of 

 these in the British Islands.* I was fortunate 

 enough to become the possessor of this prize. 

 The plumage exactly resembles that of the speci- 

 men in the museum of the Zoological Society in 

 the Regent's Park, from which the first description 

 was taken by Mr. Vigors, as well as that in the 

 possession of Colonel Bonham, shot by himself in 

 Ireland, which I have since examined. Altogether 

 it has very much the look of a diminutive wood- 

 cock, but is of a dark copper-colour, beautifully 

 mottled with transverse pencillings of a lighter hue: 

 the top of the head and back of the neck are of a 



* Vide Yarrell's ' History of British Birds,' 2nd edition. 



