GALLINAGO GALLINULA. 831 



for its habit of lying close, being difficult to flush, taking short flights, and suddenly dropping again ; when 

 fired at and missed repeatedly, as I have seen happen, it refuses to leave the locality which it has selected, 

 darting away each time with its extraordinary zigzag flight, circling round, and then twisting sideways, suddenly 

 disappears in the grass. This irregularity in its flight makes it very difficult to hit. The speed with which it 

 flies is not equal to that of its relations, but it is more than compensated for by the erratic course which it takes. 

 It is not a sociable bird, as a rule, not more than two or three being found in the same locality, which are 

 flushed at some little distance from one another j and it often occurs that it is the solitary occupant of some 

 little morass. Col. Irby, however, observes that in Southern Spain (where its favourite haunts were the " ojos," 

 or land-springs, at the edges of the rnarisma) it collected in little assemblies before migrating. He thus writes 

 of it : — " Towards the end of February, Jack Snipes assemble together very much ; and this gathering of them 

 is a sure prelude to the general departure of most of the Snipes for the north. The greatest number of the 

 present species that I ever saw anywhere was in some of the 'ojos' westward of Coria del Rio, near Seville; 

 these circular spots, about 10 yards in diameter, are very muddy and sparingly covered with short sedge. 

 Many of them held fifteen or a dozen Jack Snipe; and the often-cited but imaginary individual who is said 

 to have found a single Jack Snipe afford him sport for months, until his friend unluckily killed it, would 

 indeed, have been in happy hunting-grounds." In extensive swamps of the Delta of the Nile, Von Heuglin 

 found it singly or in more or less scattered companies, frequenting places which were thickly overgrown with 

 rushes, in both fresh and brackish water ; and he remarks that in that locality it preferred the vicinity of the 

 sea to affecting the sides of streams. In very hard weather it lies very close, even though it be feeding in a 

 comparatively open spot, such as in running water at the edge of a stream, from which I have flushed it, and 

 noticed it fly off rather heavily, with an even flight. Its diet sometimes consists of minute shellfish. I recently 

 found the stomach of a specimen I skinned crammed with tiny bivalves, measuring one eighth of an inch in 

 diameter, and which apparently belonged to the genus Sjjhcei-ium. 



Niclification. — In Europe the Jack Snipe breeds during the month of June, resorting to the great swamps 

 in Lapland to nest. In 1853, Mr. Wolley, the celebrated oologist, found several nests in the great marsh of 

 Muonioniska ; he describes them as being " made loosely of little pieces of grass and Equisetum not at all 

 woveu together, with a few old leaves of the dwarf birch, placed in a dry sedgy or grassy spot close to more 

 open swamps." The female sits so closely that it will almost suffer itself to be caught. Mr. Wolley writes 

 with reference to the nests which he found : — " In the course of the day and night I found three more nests, 

 and examined the birds of each. One allowed me to touch it with my hand before it rose ; and another only got 

 up when my foot was within 6 inches of it." The eggs are enormously large in proportion to the size of the 

 bird, four of them being said to weigh li oz. I am indebted to Mr. Dresser for an opportunity of examining a 

 small series of five which were collected in Lapland. They are stone-buff, with an olivaceous tinge on 

 two, and are pyriform in shape, some more pointed than others at the small end; they are handsomely 

 marked with large blotches and clouds of deep sepia, collected in some specimens in the form of a cap, and in 

 others in a zone round the large end, besides which there are other tolerably large blots on the smaller half; 

 under these lie blotches of bluish grey, which in one egg are very large and dark and take a transverse 

 direction ; at the larger end there are some fine dark pencillings in one or two examples. In size they vary 

 in length from l - 17to L55, and in breadth from T06 to 111. 



During the breeding-season, the Jack Snipe makes a peculiar noise on the wing, which is considered to 

 be akin to that made by the Common Snipe. Mr. Wolley, who discovered this habit, writes to Mr. Hewiston 

 as follows concerning it: — "It was on the 17th of June 1853, in the great marsh of Muonioniska, that I first 

 heard the Jack-Snipe, though at the time I could not at all guess what it was, — an extraordinary sound, unlike 

 any thing I had heard before ; I could not tell from what direction it came ; and it filled me with a curious 

 surprise. My Finnish interpreter thought it was a Capercally, and at that time I could not contradict him ; 

 but soon I found that it was a small bird gliding at a wild pace at a great height over the marsh. I know not 

 how better to describe the noise than by likening it to the cantering of a horse in the distance, over a hard, hollow 



road ; it came in fours with a similar cadence, and a like clear yet hollow sound It was not long 



after I heard it that I ascertained that the remarkable hammering noise in the air was made by the Jack- 

 Snipe." 



