JACK SNIPE. 87 



ever been obtained eitber in Orkney or Shetland. Sir 

 Humphrey Davy says, " I was informed at Copenhagen, 

 that the Jack Snipe certainly breeds in Zealand, and I saw 

 a nest with its eggs, said to be from the island of Sandholm, 

 opposite Copenhagen ; and I have no doubt that this bird 

 sometimes makes its nest in the marshes of Holstein and 

 Hanover. The Jack Snipe feeds upon smaller insects than 

 the Common Snipe : small white larvae, such as are found 

 in black bogs, are its favourite food, but I have generally 

 found seeds in its stomach, once hempseeds, and always 

 gravel." 



I saw eggs of the Jack Snipe in the Museum at Paris, of 

 one of which I have an exact drawing. The egg is of a yellow- 

 ish olive, the larger end spotted with two shades of brown ; 

 the length of the egg one inch three lines by ten lines in 

 breadth. Mr. Dann says the Jack Snipe is far less nume- 

 rous in Scandinavia than either of the two preceding 

 species, but frequents the same localities. It however 

 migrates south considerably later ; he has met with them 

 on the Dofre Fi-ell as late as the end of September, after a 

 frost of some days 1 duration with deep snow, and has seen 

 them at Lulea, on the Bothnian Gulph, in October. They 

 are not unfrequently to be met with as late as November 

 and December, in Sweden. M. Temminck, in the fourth 

 part of his Manual, mentions that this bird breeds in con- 

 siderable numbers in the environs of St. Petersburgh ; and 

 Pennant says it visits Siberia. Mr. Hoy is said to have 

 found the nests and eggs of the Jack Snipe at Falcon- 

 swaerd, in North Brabant. It is a winter visiter only to 

 France, Provence, and Italy. It is found in Sicily during 

 winter, and at Malta in March and October. Mr. Strick- 

 land mentions that it is abundant at Smyrna in the same 

 season ; the Russian Naturalists found it in the vicinity of 



