subsist chiefly upon insects. It is difficult to account 

 for the sudden appearance or disappearance of these 

 birds in various places without any perceptible reason 

 from change of weather, or exhaustion of food-supply, 

 but " here to-day and gone to-morrow " is perhaps 

 more strictly applicable to the Snipe than to any other 

 British bird. I have had occasionally very good sport 

 at Snipes in various parts of Ireland, as well as in 

 Tunis, Sardinia, and Sicily, but I never met with such 

 an abundance of these birds anywhere as in the marshes 

 of Epirus in the winter of 1857. 



The figure in the background of the accompanying 

 Plate was taken from a specimen of the large russet- 

 coloured variety killed in Ireland by Lieut.-Col. L. H. 

 Irby, who kindly sent it to me " in the flesh." 

 With regard to this variety of the Common Snipe, 

 Mr. H. Saunders, in the 4th ed. ' Yarrell,' vol. iii. p. 347, 

 writes with reference to a Snipe recorded by the late 

 Mr. Lubbock as having weighed nearly eight ounces : 

 " Mr. Lubbock's bird and one shot by Mr. Stevenson, 

 appear to have belonged to a large form of a russet- 

 brown hue, which has also been noticed by the late 

 Mr. Rodd in Cornwall, and has occurred in many 

 other parts of England. Mr. Gould was at one time 

 inclined to consider that it might be entitled to specific 

 distinction, in which case he proposed for it the name 

 of Gallinago russata." I have a specimen of this 

 variety, that was, if I recollect rightly, obtained many 

 years ago in Sussex, and is considerably larger than a 

 specimen of the SoUtary Snipe, of about the average 

 dimensions, that is cased with it. 



