SCOLOPAX SABINI, Vigors. 

 Sabine's Snipe. 



PLATE XXVII. 



S. corpore castaneo atroque vario, subtus pallidior ; pileo, humeris, pteromatibus 

 remigibusque atris, rostro pedibusque fuscis. 



Scolopax Sabini, Vigors, Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xiv. p. 556. 



J_ his rare species of Scolopax was first described by Mr Vigors under 

 its present title in the fourteenth volume of the Transactions of the Lin- 

 nean Society. From the account there given, it appears, that the indivi- 

 dual which furnished the materials for his description, and from which our 

 figure is taken, was killed in Queen's County, Ireland, in 1 822. The sin- 

 gularity of its plumage and appearance fortunately rescued it from de- 

 struction, and being presented to Mr Vigors, it now enriches the collec- 

 tion which he has so munificently presented to the Zoological Society of 

 London. A second specimen of a female has since been killed near Ro- 

 chester, on the banks of the Medway, and is now preserved in the valuable 

 collection of Mr Dunning of Maidstone. It is a slight degree smaller, 

 which may probably indicate the difference of sex ; but it agrees in every 

 other respect, as to plumage and relative proportion, with the bird now 

 described, and corroborates the justness of Mr Vigors's views, in consider- 

 ing it a new species, instead of permitting it to remain unnoticed as a 

 mere variety of the Common Snipe (S. gallinago) or Greater Snipe (S. ma- 

 jor). 



In his description, Mr Vigors has entered minutely into its affinities, 

 and pointed out, with clearness and precision, those differences of struc- 

 ture which distinguish it from Scolopax major, gallinago, and gallinula, the 

 European species to which it is most closely allied. Independent of the 

 colour, it is sufficiently distinguished from S. gallinago and major by the 



