Bird Notes 
THE Jack (Limnocryptes gallinula) is about 
the smallest of the snipes, the 
largest being the Brazilian Giant 
Snipe (Gallinago gigantea), 
which is even larger than our woodcock. 
The jack-snipe makes up for his small size 
The 
Jack=Snipe. 
by being exceedingly good eating and hard 
to bring to bag. It is of a jack-snipe 
that the well- 
known story is 
told about the 
sportsman who 
was an indifferent 
shot, and was 
found lamenting 
over the corpse 
of a snipe which 
he had killed. 
Asked the reason 
of his grief, he 
replied that he 
could always 
find that bird 
at about the 
same place and 
have a morn- 
ing’s practice at 
it, but now it 
had managed to 
get in the way 
of the shot, and 
his harmless re- 
creation was at 
an end. This 
little snipe’s 
agility avails him 
against other 
than human foes 
also, for in a 
recent number 
of the ‘“ Ibis,” 
Mr. W. Jesse, 
a well-known 
Anglo- Indian 
observer, states that he saw one pursued by 
‘a pair of Jugger falcons (Falco jugger), 
two kites, a tawny eagle, and two other 
birds of prey, and then escape. Truly a 
case of high, low, Jack, and game! 
The hen of the Jack—which, I suppose, 
should be by rights the “Jenny” snipe— 
THE JACK-SNIPE. 
407 
is remarkable for the great size of the 
four eggs she lays, the weight of this 
clutch coming within half an ounce of her 
own. Unlike the common snipe and the 
woodeock, the bird does not breed with us, 
its nesting-grounds bemg in Scandinavia 
and Siberia, whence it migrates southwards 
in winter, having on one occasion even been 
reported from 
the Andaman 
Islands. This, 
however, was 
abnormal, and 
as a general rule 
it does not go 
so far south as 
the common 
snipe. In addi- 
tion to its small 
size, the half- 
snipe, as the jack 
1s sometimes 
called, may 
easily be dis- 
tinguished from 
the common or 
full snipe by the 
absence of the 
central buff 
streak down the 
crown, only the 
two side ones 
being present, 
and by its 
pointed tail - 
feathers, as is 
well shown in 
the photograph, 
for which we are 
again indebted to 
ee € Mr. Mavroyeni, 
a:b’ ieee} of Smyrna. It 
also has a beau- 
tiful green and 
purple gloss on the back. There are no 
true jack-snipe out of the Old World, the 
American birds sometimes so called bemg 
really sandpipers. Snipes and sandpipers, 
however, all belong to the same family, 
though the former are easily recognisable as 
a natural group or genus within it. 
