GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOIVL. 303 



tion, and wintering in Australia and Tasmania. Distinguished 

 from the Great Snipe by having eighteen tail feathers, only the 

 two outermost being narrow, and by having the wing six inches 

 or over in length. S. aquatorialis, an inhabitant of Africa south 

 of the Great Desert. Distinguished from all other birds of this 

 genus by its having the ground colour of the four outer tail 

 feathers on each side white, and the median wing coverts narrowly 

 tipped with buff. 



Time during which the Great Snipe may be taken. 



— August I St to March ist. 



Habits. — Although the Great Snipe is but accidental in its 

 visits to our islands, its migrations (undertaken at night) in Conti- 

 nental Europe and in Asia are very marked and regular. It crosses 

 the Mediterranean during March and April — a month earlier in the 

 east than the west (which is an exceptional Passage) — and arrives 

 at its breeding grounds in Norway and Sweden from the middle to 

 the end of May. Mr. Seebohm found that it was one of the latest 

 birds to arrive in the latitude of the Arctic Circle, not doing so in 

 the Petchora valley until the 3rd of June, and eight days later 

 still in the Yenesay valley in Siberia. The haunts of the Great 

 Snipe are in swamps, especially those where patches of bare mud 

 or sand occur; and the marshy margins of rivers and lakes, 

 where tall rank grass, sedges, and other aquatic vegetation furnish 

 plenty of cover. Its habits are very similar to those of its con- 

 geners. It delights to skulk amongst the herbage, remaining 

 buried under the grass and sedge until almost trodden upon 

 before it rises. Its flight, however, is neither so erratic nor so 

 rapid as that of the Common Snipe, and the tail is much more 

 expanded ; the bird makes a considerable whirr as it rises. Like 

 that bird, however, it feeds principally at dusk or by the light of 

 the moon, then wandering from its favourite cover on to the 

 more open parts of its haunts, where it struts about in a timorous 

 kind of way in search of food, at the least alarm hiding amongst 

 or behind the nearest tuft of vegetation. Its food consists princi- 

 pally of worms, but insects and their larvffi, as well as slugs, are 

 also eaten. Whilst in quest of food the Great Snipe often 

 wanders into districts which it does not usually frequent — turnip- 

 fields, and grass lands, and dry commons. Seldom more than a 



