COMMON SNIPE. 19 



slightly spotted with pale brown, with a purple or bronze 

 reflection. Four conspicuous lines of rich buff, pale cream- 

 colour in winter, run down its sides, the broad outside margins 

 of the long scapular feathers, which are brown along their 

 centres. 



The wings have the first quill the longest. They expand to 

 about the width of one foot two inches. Greater and lesser 

 wing coverts, dusky brown, with pale brown or cream-coloured 

 edges and marks on the tips. Primaries, dull black, the first 

 with its outer webs nearly white; secondaries, dull black tipped 

 with whitish, the inner one striated and barred with light 

 ferruginous; tertiaries, black, barred with pale brown. The tail, 

 of fourteen feathers, is, at the base and for two thirds of its 

 length, black with light ferruginous bars; on the outer portion 

 are oval patches of pale chesnut, bounded by a dusky brown 

 band; the tips of the feathers white. Upper tail coverts, barred 

 with alternate bars of dusky black and pale yellowish brown; 

 under tail coverts, pale yellowish brown, barred with greyish 

 black; the shafts of the feathers bend inwards. Legs and toes, 

 greyish or brownish green. 



The female rather exceeds the male in size; the plumage of 

 both is similar. 



'A young bird about two thirds grown, with the beak only 

 one inch long, and with down still adhering about the head, 

 has the narrow light-coloured margins, and the rich red brown 

 on the feathers of the upper surface of the body and wings, 

 as in the old bird in summer.' In 'The Naturalist,' new series, 

 volume ii, page 132, one is described as having been shot at 

 Gruestwick, in Norfolk, which was of a delicate buff-colour, with 

 darker markings on the back and wings, and the bill and legs 

 of a pink hue. I have also seen a dull buff-coloured one, in 

 the possession of the Rev. J. Mathews, Vicar of Wetwang. In 

 the 'Zoologist,' page 2801, another is mentioned by Edmund 

 Thomas Higgins, in which the outer feather on one side was 

 considerably longer than the second, and on the other, shorter. 



A pied variety of this species was procured near Bichmond, 

 Yorkshire. 



One has been known with its bill, for considerably more than 

 half its length, turned upwards, like that of the Avocet. In 

 the 'Magazine of Natural History,' volume ii, page 437, one 

 is described which had the bill yellow, with a brown tip, the 

 lines on the head of a dull buff; the breast above, yellowish 



