GREAT SNIPE. 311 



has been taken in Ayrshire by Mr William Boyd of Greenock, 

 who informs me that he killed a specimen on 15th September, 

 1868, on the lands of Corsehouse, in the parish of Stewarton. " I 

 had just broken up a covey of partridges," writes Mr Boyd, " and 

 marked two of them into the middle of a large patch of heather 

 and rushes; my dog had also marked them, and was creeping 

 anxiously up to them when he made one of those undecided points 

 which dogs make at game they are not accustomed to. I was quite 

 sure from his attitude that he had not found the partridges, and ex- 

 pected every moment to see either a hare or a fox. I was surprised, 

 therefore, when the Snipe rose, and did not then fire, as I did not 

 wish to disturb the partridges; after shooting these, however, and 

 making another search, the dog found it again in the middle of a 

 stubble field; it again flew off before I got up, but at length dropped 

 near a ditch, where I observed it running, just keeping before the 

 dog's nose. I then shot it as it dashed off, and I remarked that 

 while flying it looked very much like a golden plover. I had seen 

 the same bird three days before, as we were coming home in the 

 evening : it rose from our feet as we were walking through a patch 

 of potatoes, and flew slowly away, looking in the dusk like a very 

 young partridge. I may remark that the bird was very fat." 



On the eastern coast it has occurred, perhaps, more frequently. 

 The Earl of Haddington has obligingly sent me word of one which 

 was shot at Mellerstain, in Roxburghshire, by his father, the late 

 earl, in the autumn of 1865, and states that he himself, about that 

 time, observed a very large Snipe at Earlston, which he was certain 

 belonged to this species. In the winter of the same year one was 

 shot in Forfarshire, and is now in the Museum at St Andrews; and 

 Mr Harvie Brown has informed me of another, which he lately 

 saw, having been killed in Fifeshire. Mr Wardlaw Ramsay writes 

 that two others were shot near St Andrews by a gardener named 

 Hutcheson in the service of Mr Craigie of Halkett. The species 

 is also mentioned by Mr St. John, in his ' Tour in Sutherland,' 

 as one of the Snipes said to breed in one or two localities in that 

 county, but he gives no other particulars. It is catalogued as a 

 Caithness bird by Mr Sinclair of Wick, in whose collection there 

 is a local specimen. 



According to Messrs Baikie and Heddle, the Great Snipe had 

 several times occurred in marshy ground on Sanday in September, 

 1815. In other parts of the country it affects dry pasture lands, 



