212 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



most winter Limicolce {Arenaria, Strepsilas, Limosa, &g.), indi- 

 viduals are very rarely noticed in England during summer. The 

 first records generally mention the middle or end of September. 

 My earliest personal record is the remarkable date of Sept. 9th 

 (1905), when I picked one up beneath the telegraph-wires in 

 the Conway Valley ; yet I have seen many in the third week of 

 September, and have had odd ones brought to me in the second 

 week of that month. The range of the Jack-Snipe is very 

 great, but I have failed to discover what grounds Seebohm had 

 for stating (in his ' Distribution of the Charadriidae ') that the 

 species originated in Ceylon. Little good can come of taking 

 this fanciful speculation seriously, for in accepting it we must 

 allow that, while the summer range has wandered far to the 

 north, the winter range has radiated in all directions ! 



In England the Jack- Snipe is a silent bird. I have two 

 records, both made in Yorkshire (by Atkinson and by Boyes), of 

 cases in which a bird was heard to utter a thin bat-like note. 

 Dubois ('Faun. 111. Vert. Belg., Oiseaux,' ii. 233) describes it 

 as quite a noisy creature in Belgium ; but I am inclined to 

 think that perhaps he is quoting some author who has written 

 of the Jack-Snipe in other parts of Europe. In the far 

 northern breeding grounds it is said to be a noisy bird, but 

 we are not told whether its " hollow notes " are vocal or instru- 

 mental. A fine day in late winter will sometimes prompt the 

 Common Snipe to flutter and " chip," if not to drum, but I have 

 never known its sedate little neighbour to act so under the same 

 emotions in England. 



Linnaeus, when he prepared the Tenth Edition of his * Systema 

 Naturae,' did not know the Jack- Snipe. Earlier writers in this 

 country failed to separate it from the Common Snipe ; Francis 

 Willughby confessed that, until corrected by Mr. Lister, he 

 believed it to be the " Cock Snipe," and this is still the opinion 

 of ignorant sportsmen. Even to-day many students of birds 

 hold the two species to belong to the same genus, but some 

 writers, aware of the striking differences displayed in the 

 sternum and the tail, have placed the birds apart, using the 

 genus Lymnocryptes of Kaup for the smaller bird, and that of 

 Gallinago for the other. 



(To be continued.) 



