SCOLOPACID.E. 417 



them over and over again. I once had an oppor- 

 tunity of witnessing this local attachment in the 

 Jack Snipe, which continued for two or three winters 

 to visit the same spot, on some meadows near the 

 house here, in spite of drainage and other improve- 

 ments which had quite driven away all his big 

 relations. What became of him at last I do not 

 know whether he got shot, or at last found his 

 favourite locality too dry to hold him. 



The food of the Jack Snipe consists of aquatic 

 insects and their larvae and small worms, for which 

 it bores in the mud ; * small white larvae, such as 

 are found in black bogs, are especially mentioned, 

 and seed are also often found in its stomach, once 

 hemp-seed, and generally gravel, t 



The nest appears to be made very loosely " of 

 little pieces of grass and Equisetum, not at all woven 

 together, with a few old leaves of the dwarf birch, 

 placed in a dry sedgy or grassy spot close to a more 

 open swamp." J 



The plumage of the Jack Snipe differs consider- 

 ably from that of the Common Snipe, and is much 

 brighter and more glossy. The beak is dark brown 

 at the point, reddish brown at the base ; irides dark 

 brown; the space from the beak to the eye dark 

 brown ; over this and over the eye a broadish streak 



* Meyer's ' British Birds,' vol. v., p. 60. 

 f Yarrell, vol. iii., p. 43. J Id., p. 44. 



