276 CHAKADKIID^] 



COMMON SNIPE. Gallinago ccelestis (Frenzel). 



Coloured Figures. Gould, ' Birds of Great Britain,' vol. iv, 

 pi. 79; Dresser, 'Birds of Europe,' vol. vii, pis. 542, 

 543 ; Lilford, ' Coloured Figures,' vol. v, pis. 26, 27 ; 

 Booth, ' Bough Notes,' vol. ii, pi. 25. 



This familiar game-bird is widely distributed over our 

 country throughout the year, becoming quite plentiful in 

 autumn and winter, as the migrants arrive from more 

 northern latitudes. Most of the birds which breed in 

 Britain journey south in August : in hard weather a 

 westerly move often takes place from Great Britain to 

 Ireland. In September migrants having just arrived are 

 often comparatively tame, and may be seen resting on the 

 open marshes or ooze-slobs. 1 Snipe have been repeatedly 

 put up from small, isolated clumps of rushes along the 

 sea-beach of Dublin Bay ; many of the birds obtained in 

 that locality were very dark in colour and in poor condition. 



Restless in its habits, and largely influenced in its 

 movements by the state of the weather, it is not surprising 

 to find this active bird in varied localities. 



It is often met with amid furze and heather, on dry 

 hills some hundreds of feet above the sea-level ; Mr. Harvie- 

 Brown has found it on the summits of the hills of the 

 Outer Hebrides, while Thompson mentions it as feeding on 

 Zostera-coveiced banks at the sea-level. 



^The Snipe, unlike the Woodcock, avoids woods and 

 thickets, being content with the cover of rushes and grass, 

 but, like the Woodcock, it prefers to rest or lurk about in 

 such cover by day, ' flighting ' by night to its feeding- 

 grounds. Hence its movements are difficult to follow 

 except when it is flushed from the swamp and forced to 

 take wing. I have crept on these birds unawares, and, 

 concealing myself, have watched how they wend their way 

 slowly through rushes or tall grass, until a bare patch of 

 mud is reached, which they probe energetically in search 

 of food ; or, if suspicious of danger, crouch low to avoid 

 observation. This species has been known to perch in 

 trees ; indeed, many allied wading-birds, such, for instance, 



1 Mr. W. J. Williams informs me that on September 29th, 1900, he 

 noted a ' wisp ' of some fifteen birds standing on a bare patch of sand 

 at Portmarnock Point on the Dublin coast : other small * waders ' 

 accompanied them. 



