6 



a zigzag line until it has traversed some distance, when it shoots high up in the air, but soon 

 alights, dropping down almost like a stone. Its flight is light and wavering, almost Bat-like, 

 but swift ; and it turns and twists on the wing with the greatest ease. During the daytime it 

 remains carefully concealed, and will allow any one to pass close to it without attempting to 

 move ; but as soon as the evening sets in, it becomes more active, and soon commences to move 

 about in search of food. It is probably more active in the evening and early in the morning 

 than at any other time of the night ; and I am unaware if it is on the move throughout the night, 

 except when the moon gives a full clear light. Like its allies it feeds on small insects, worms, 

 &c, which it obtains chiefly by probing or boring in the soft soil ; but as these birds are gene- 

 rally shot during the daytime, when the contents of the stomach are partially digested, it is hard 

 to determine, with any degree of precision, on what they have been feeding. Naumann says 

 that he has found small grass-seeds in the stomachs of Jack Snipes too often to believe that they 

 were swallowed by chance only. 



It is probably because the Jack Snipe is so hard to flush that it has been said by several 

 good authorities to be solitary ; for I fully agree with Mr. Stevenson, who says that, although 

 single birds may be found here and there, a careful search would probably discover one or more 

 close by ; and he could, he adds, give instances of their being found in numbers almost exceeding 

 the largest flights of the common Snipe. Colonel Irby also, as above stated, says that in Spain 

 he has found a dozen or fifteen Jack Snipes in one small marshy patch ; and many other observers 

 speak of several being found together in one place. 



Mr. Wolley appears to have been the first naturalist who obtained trustworthy information 

 respecting the nidification of the Jack Snipe ; and to him collectors were first indebted for authentic 

 eggs of this species. Mr. Hewitson gives (Eggs Brit. B. ii. p. 356) the following notes respecting 

 the nidification of this species, communicated to him by Mr. Wolley : — " I scarcely like to tell you 

 about the Jack-Snipe, any thing I can say must be so poor an expression of my exultation at 

 the finding of this long-wished-for egg. It was on the 17th 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 anything 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. The same day we 

 found a nest which seemed to be of a kind unknown to me. The next morning I went to Kharto 

 Uoma with a good strength of beaters. I kept them, as well as I could, in a line, — myself in the 

 middle, my Swedish travelling companion on one side, and the Finn talker on the other. When- 

 ever a bird was put off its eggs, the man who saw it was to pass on the word, and the whole line 

 was to stand whilst I went to examine the eggs and take them at once, or observe the bearings 

 of the spot for another visit, as might be necessary. We had not been many hours in the marsh, 



when I saw a bird get up, and I marked it down The nest was found A sight of the 



eggs as they lay untouched raised my expectations to the highest pitch. I went to the spot 

 where I had marked the bird, put it up again, and again saw it, after a short low flight, drop 



