88 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 



pairs do not remain to breed, and that too in many different 

 parts of the kingdom. It was an object to me some twenty 

 years ago to obtain eggs of the Woodcock, and I applied to a 

 person in Norfolk, who had not any difficulty in procuring for 

 me eggs from the gamekeeper of a neighbouring estate out of 

 two different nests which had been deserted by their owners. 

 My friend added the information, that scarcely a year passed in 

 which one nest or more of Woodcocks was not known of on the 

 estate in question. The nest, a very loose one, is made of dead 

 leaves and the like, Bracken leaves appearing to be commonly 

 used for the purpose. The eggs are usually about four in 

 number, and want the peculiar pointed shape common 1,0 almost 

 all the other birds of the Order. They are of a dirty yellowish 

 white, a good deal blotched and spotted with two or three shades 

 of pale brown and purplish-grey. -The old bird is known to 

 transport her young, if occasion demands, from one place to 

 another. She has been seen doing so repeatedly, and by good 

 observers, generally making use of both feet for the purpose, 

 sometimes one only ; and, it is said, using her beak sometimes for 

 the same purpose. Fig. 1, plate IX. 



204. GREAT SNIPE (Scolopax major). 

 Solitary Snipe, Double Snipe.' Often taken, no doubt, by 

 many a sportsman in former days to be a very large specimen of 

 the Common Snipe, than which no bird with which I am well 

 acquainted seems to vary more in size. On the wing it does not 

 look much larger than the Common Snipe, and is seldom seen 

 except alone, or at most two in company. It breeds in high 

 northern localities, and never with us, and no notice, therefore, 

 of its nesting habits is permissible in this place. 



205. COMMON SNIPE (Scolopax galhnago). 

 Whole Snipe, Snite, Heather-Bleater. Although this Snipe, 

 like the Wood-Cock, retires to northern latitudes to breed, yet 

 there are few districts in Britain suitable to its habits in which 

 it is not known to breed in greater or less numbers. And it is a 

 bird, moreover, which is quite sure to make it very distinctly 

 known that it has a nest and eggs somewhere near, if only any 

 human visitor appears on the scene. I refer to the very peculiar 

 note or sound emitted by the male, always while he is on the 

 wing high in the air, and always accompanied with a very remark- 

 able action of his wings and curving descent in his flight. This 

 sound or note for it is not absolutely certain, I think, how it is 

 produced is variously called humming, bleating, drumming, 

 buzzing. To me, the first time I heard it, and before I knew to 

 what origin to assign it, the impression produced was precisely 

 that of a large Bee, entangled in some particular place and unable 



