no British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs, 



Family— SCOL OP A CID^E. 



Common Snipe. 



Gallinago ccelestis, FrENZEL. 



A WELL- KNOWN and miich-loved bird, unfortunately decreasing considerably 

 in numbers in England, as its breeding grounds are drained and brought 

 under cultivation. It still breeds in some numbers in Norfolk, SuflFolk, and 

 Lincolnshire, and sparingly elsewhere, where it can find peace and suitable quarters, 

 e.g., on the moors of North Britain and Ireland. It is found breeding pretty 

 commonly in Iceland and the Fseroes, and the whole of northern and temperate 

 Europe and Asia, migrating southwards to North Africa, to the Azores and Canaries 

 and the Gambia westward — eastward to Abyssinia and the Somali country. In 

 Asia it is found in winter all over China, Burmah, and the Malay countries, as 

 far south as the Equator, India, Ceylon and Arabia. Asiatic records are somewhat 

 confusing, owing to the presence of the Pin-tailed Snipe (G. stenura, with twenty- 

 six tail-feathers), which occurs wherever ours does, and goes further south in winter. 

 In America the Snipe is called G. wilsoni, and though it has sixteen tail-feathers 

 (ours normally fourteen) a comparison of a large series of specimens from both 

 hemispheres makes it certain that the two can only be kept separate for con- 

 venience sake. A Snipe has been observed in Greenland, but I believe that no 

 specimens are available for examination.* 



Description, of the adult : bill brown (af inches long), darker at the tip; iris 

 umber; head and neck light brown, darker on the crown and hind neck; four 

 dark brown lines from the bill, one through, and one over each eye ; back prettily 

 mottled with chestnut, clay-brown, and black; long buff outer borders to the 

 scapulars and tertiaries ; wings dark grey-brown, median coverts mottled with the 

 two browns, like the back; greater coverts and secondaries white- tipped ; first 

 primary with the outer web, except at the tip, creamy-white ; tail (fourteen feathers) 

 mostly black, this colour decreasing in area outwards, till only black bases are left 

 on the outer feathers; a broad subterminal chestnut bar to the central feathers, 

 followed by a narrow dark brown one and a reddish white tip ; the outer feathers 



* Hagerup states that the commou Suipe is "somewhat uncommon; may possibly breed" [in Greenland], 

 ("Catalogue of the Birds of Greenland," p. 54). — H.A.M. 



