258 SCOLOPACID.E.' 



mggans (the yellow flag, Iris pseudacorus), that the flight was 

 peculiar, the bird being inclined to fly round the place from which 

 it was sprung, and to alight again about the same spot, even after 

 being fired at.* Since the fields were drained — nearly fifty years 

 ago — and the "saggans," of which there were some acres, extirpated, 

 he has not met with one, nor did he, though shooting a great 

 deal every season since that period until the last two or three 

 years, see the species in other localities : he describes the birds 

 when sprung as looking like small woodcocks in size. In the 

 year 1831, a lady, well acquainted with our most critical species 

 of birds, assured me that she had seen a great snipe winch had 

 been killed in the county of Meath. In the ' Wild Sports of the 

 West/ the following passage appears, with reference to the island 

 of Acini. " We crossed the bent-banks, occasionally knocking a 

 rabbit over as we went along, and wheeled to the westward to 

 skirt the base of Sleive More. We had not proceeded far, before 

 an islander, who was herding cows, told us that there was a 

 crotvour Tceogli leg — a little woodcock — in the next ravine. We 

 accordingly put a setter in, and were gratified with a steady point 

 in the place the herdsman had intimated. The bird sprang, and 

 was knocked over by my companion, when the little woodcock 

 proved to be a double snipe. These birds are extremely scarce 

 here, and a few couple only are seen during a whole season by 

 persons most conversant in traversing the bogs," p. 299, ed. 1838. 

 When in Achil in June 1834, I particularly inquired of Lieut. 

 Reynolds, E.N., of the Coast Guard Service — an ardent and 

 indefatigable sportsman — respecting this snipe ; but he had never 

 seen one in the island. The bird was known to him from his 

 having once or twice shot it in Wales. 



A dog-breaker, who was in the habit of accompanying a relative 

 of mine when snipe-shooting, told me of a "woodcock-snipe" which 

 was killed by my friend in the season of 1834-35, in the county of 

 Antrim, near Belfast : he described it as having been larger than 

 the common species, and having the belly barred all over. It 

 particularly attracted his attention as a bird which he had not 

 * I have occasionally remarked the common snipe to do the same. 



