THE GAME BIRDS 01 INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 913 



are constantly to be heard in the same place, are made by one and 

 the same bird at different times. At a considerable height it is 

 not easy to distinguish a Jack Snipe from another Snipe, and the 

 clicking and bleating seem to my ears exactly like the Common . 

 Snipe's. However, I did not find a single one of the latter bird 

 in Iso-or Kharto-uoma, though I have met with one or two else- 

 where in the neighbourhood. Few of the country people recognise 

 two kinds ; they consider that all the sounds proceed from the 

 same bird, the " Ram of the Heavens"; they take them for signs 

 of the weather, or they adapt them to words pretending to be the 

 lamentations of transmigrated girls, who have died in their 

 maidenhood and are bewailing their hard fate ; but the lads generally 

 get the worst of it in a trial of wit with their fair companions. " 



" (The above, written by Mr. Wolley from Muonoiovara, 27th 

 November 1854, to Mr. Hewitson, was hy him printed, with 

 a few omissions (now restored) in the Third Edition of his 

 work.") 



"Mr. Wolley," adds Prof. Newton, " subsequently satisfied him- 

 self that the Jack Snipe did not bleat in the air or utter the 

 keet-koot call-note on the ground, those noises being exclusively due 

 to the common species ; but both are called indifferently the 

 Jeivaar Jaure, meaning the ' Ram ' or, I believe, more strictly, 

 the ' Wether of the Heavens.' " 



The Jack Snipe commences breeding a good deal later than the 

 Fantail, and appears seldom to lay before the end of May, though 

 I have a clutch or eggs taken in Finland on the 21st, of that 

 month. The majority of birds do not lay until the second or even 

 third week of June and eggs may be found (vide Wolley above- 

 quoted) until well on into July. Naturally the further North the 

 breeding grounds the later the Jack Snipe lays, and in the most 

 Southern portion of its breeding area, late eggs of Gallinago 

 ccelestis may be taken on the same ground, and at the same time 

 as the earliest eggs of Gallinago gallinula. 



The nest consists merely of a few blades of grass, weeds or 

 leaves in some natural depression in the ground, but in a few 

 instances they are said to collect together a considerable amount 

 of material, more especially when the site selected is a wet one. 



