280 SCOLOPAClDiE. 



shot." The jack snipe differs from almost all other birds in 

 having greatly increased in numbers of late years in the north of 

 Ireland. An old sportsman assures me that in his early days it 

 was a rarity, and that not more than one would be met with in 

 the course of six or seven days' snipe-shooting. 



In the winter of 1831-32, these birds were particularly nume- 

 rous in the north of Ireland. Although the species does not, 

 like the common snipe, habitually change its quarters, it occa- 

 sionally does so during the period of its stay, as I have known 

 the same bogs to be equally well hunted by the same dogs, and 

 when there was equally good scenting, produce double the number 

 one day that they would do the next. I have seen four and a half 

 brace killed (Dec. 15th, 1834) on ground, upon which not a 

 bird could be found two days before, though a superior scenting 

 day to the other. 



Major Walker, of Belmont, near Wexford, states that the jack 

 snipe arrives there in autumn, about a week before the wood- 

 cock,* and that in the mountain of Forth both species gather in 

 numbers before taking their departure northward in the spring. 

 I never heard of the jack snipe thus congregating elsewhere. 



With respect to the breeding of this bird in Ireland, Mr. E. 

 Ball has met with it in the Dublin mountains at midsummer ; 

 and a friend of his once shot several individuals there early 

 in August. Different persons have told me (without supplying 

 proof) of its breeding in certain localities ; but the dunlin has often 

 been mistaken for it on the moors in the breeding-season. On 

 the following testimony of Mr. G. Jackson, gamekeeper, (commu- 

 nicated in May 1849,) I however feel certain of its having bred : — 

 "I have known some few instances of the jack snipe breeding 

 in tins country. In the year 1834 I found a nest containing four 

 eggs and the old bird sitting on them, in a large swampy bog, 

 about three miles from the town of Ballyhannis (co. Mayo), the pro- 

 perty of Lord Dillon. The following year I found two young birds 



* Sir Humphrey Davy remarks in the notes to ' Salmouia,' that in the south of 

 lllyna, the jack snipe is always later in its passage than the double snipe or the 

 woodcock. 



