The Great Snipe. ^°7 



incipient honey-comb. In each one of these pits a minute fibril of the olfactory- 

 nerve has its termination, and by this means, when the bill is thrust into the soft 

 wet soil, the slightest wriggle of the least living creature is instantly telegraphed 

 to the Woodcock's sensibilities. This arrangement is highly developed in the 

 Woodcock and Snipe (in which the pits are clearly visible in the dried skin) and, 

 to a less extent, in a good many of the Limicoline birds. 



Family— SCOL OPA CID^. 



Great Snipe. 



Gallinago major, GmEL. 



A BIRD much oftener reported than seen in this country ; the majority of the 

 "Great" Snipes, which are honoured with obituary notices in the papers, 

 are only fine examples of the Common Snipe. The present species breeds in 

 Scandinavia, Denmark, North Germany, Finland, and Northern Russia, down to 

 50°, and in small numbers in Holland. Ranging as far east as the Yenesei, it 

 has not been recorded from China or Japan, and therefore does not, in all 

 probability, extend its breeding range to the eastern half of North Asia, Gallinago 

 solitaria and G. japonica taking its place. It occurs in Britain in small numbers 

 (chiefly birds of the year) on the autumn migration, and principally on, or near, our 

 east coasts. In Ireland only three or four undoubted occurrences are known, in 

 Scotland only six or eight. The only one that I have handled in the flesh was 

 one which was picked up on the Yorkshire coast by Mr. W. E. Clarke, with its 

 neck cut half through by a telegraph wire (and curiously, the next summer I 

 picked one up on the Dovrefjeld, which had been killed in exactly the same way). 

 Throughout Europe it is found on migration, but west of the Alps on the autumn 

 journey only, very rarely indeed in spring. It is recorded as passing through 



