272 scolopacid.<e. 



of an ornithological friend to-day to the very dark colour of 

 two snipes received from Coleraine, he remarked, that most 

 probably they were birds bred in more northern countries, as he 

 well recollected that all which were shot out of the multitudinous 

 numbers which appeared in the ' bog meadows ' in August, 1828, 

 were peculiarly dark in plumage. It would be singular if we 

 could thus distinguish a foreign from a native bred snipe."* Two 

 " white snipes " killed near Belfast have come under the notice 

 of a friend. In the winter of 1831-32, several crested snipes 

 were shot in the bogs near the town just named by three of my 

 sporting acquaintances, to the gun of one of whom two or three 

 fell on the same day in the King's Moss. The crest of one which 

 came under my inspection extended for nine lines from the lower 

 portion of the entire back of the head in a horizontal manner. 

 Close to the head only, the feathers were brown and black, all the 

 rest being white : this crest arose from a warty protuberance. 

 It is extraordinary that so many with crests should occur about 

 the same time as I had not before, nor have I since met with any 

 but a single individual (in Dec. 1841) having such an appendage. 

 This specimen exhibited a row of feathers projecting in a drooping 

 manner four lines from the lower part of the back of the head ; 

 the portion of them which projected beyond the ordinary plu- 

 mage were of a white colour.f A snipe, larger than usual, and 

 of a delicate cream-coloured white, with the wing-coverts of a 

 very light brown, was shot near Cork, in Dec. 1846. % Mr. R. 

 Chute remarks that he has "occasionally seen snipe in Kerry 

 as yellow as a canary/' Two birds of this species killed in 

 Ireland, having five toes on each foot, have come under the notice 

 of a correspondent. 



* See remarks on the light colour of native-bred woodcocks at p. 254. 



t Mr. Dillwyn mentions a variety of the woodcock being sent to him on the 29th 

 of January, 1826, with a tuft of white feathers on the head. — 'Fauna, &c, of 

 Swansea,' p. 8. 



% Mr. W. A. Hackett. 



