NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



me in a short time, I flushed the hen off her nest of three 

 egg-s, and as she left it she dropped the fourth egg, which 

 broke in its fall, and the bird, continuing its flight, struck 

 itself against some posts and rails, and fell stunned to the 

 ground, but soon recovered and flew away. I marked it, 

 and afterwards went and put it up. All this time the male 

 was ' drumming ' overhead, and no other snipes were in the 

 neighbourhood. The female now joined in the 'drumming,' 

 and the two were ' drumming ' for some time, and then they 

 both alighted on the tops of posts, and allowed me to walk 

 quite near them, nodding their heads at me all the while. 

 In this instance, at any rate, I think there can be no doubt 

 whatever that both male and female were 'drumming,' as I 

 walked the small strip of bog out over and over again with- 

 out flushing another snipe." 



All three of our British snipe are great and persistent 

 travellers. The common snipe, for instance, is known 

 from Greenland to the Gambia, and passes in its 

 migrations to the Atlantic Islands, the Upper Nile, 

 and as far eastward as India. Its breeding-places are 

 in the northern and central parts of Europe and Asia. 

 In Europe it has been found nesting so far south as 

 North Italy. The double snipe nests no further south 

 in Europe than Holland and Poland, so far as is at 

 present known. Its range is a very wide one, and it 

 travels through Africa as far south as Natal and the 

 Transvaal, where, as well as in Damaraland (German 

 South-West Africa), it has been identified. I have 

 met with this bird in British Bechuanaland, and I 

 believe it has been shot not infrequently in the Orange 

 River Colony and the Cape Colony. In its eastern 

 peregrinations it wanders to the Tian Shian Mountains, 

 Turkestan, and the Yenesei River in the north. The 

 jack-snipe breeds in the northern parts of Europe and 

 Siberia, and ranges in its winter migration to North 

 Africa, India, and as far east as Japan. 



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