30 SCOLOPACID^E. 



which it will be recollected is a generic distinction, possess- 

 ing such a degree of sensibility as to enable these birds to 

 detect their prey the instant it comes in contact with it, 

 although placed beyond the reach of sight. The food of 

 the Snipe consists of worms, insects, small shells with their 

 animal inhabitants, and minute seeds ; these last, perhaps, 

 not picked up designedly, but swallowed probably while 

 adhering to the glutinous surface of their more usual 

 animal food. A Snipe that had been slightly wounded in 

 the pinion, which was kept in confinement for some time by 

 Mr. Blyth, would eat nothing but earth-worms. When 

 the feeding ground of the Snipes becomes limited by the 

 effects of frost and snow, the birds suffer greatly, and soon 

 become very thin. Many go still farther south. 



Muller includes our Snipe among the birds of Denmark. 

 M. Nilsson says it is common in Sweden, where, however, it 

 is a migratory bird, appearing in March, and departing soon 

 after the end of the breeding-season. So numerous are 

 these birds in the marshes in the vicinity of Gothenburgh, 

 that Mr. Lloyd, in his Field Sports of the North of Europe, 

 mentions having " bagged upwards of thirty couple of 

 Snipes in seven or eight hours." These were either the 

 Common, or the Double Snipe, Scolopax major, as he was 

 careless of wasting his powder and shot about the Jack, or 

 Half Snipe. Linnaeus, in the Journal of his Tour in Lap- 

 land, says, under date of the 14th of May, 1732, when 

 near Gefle, in the marshes, the note of the Snipe was heard 

 continually. Mr. Dann tells me the Common Snipe is far 

 more widely dispersed than the Great Snipe. It breeds in 

 extensive morasses and swamps in the mountainous districts 

 of Norway and Sweden, as well as in the small mosses and 

 bogs in the cultivated districts. From Scona to Lapland, 

 both eastern and western, it is widely distributed. The 



