AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 65 



7 th of that month, in shooting at a Partridge 

 skimming along the embankment of the L.N.W. 

 Railway near Thrapston ; the Partridge fell, and on 

 picking it np I was not a little surprised to find 

 a " Jack " stone dead within a few inches of the bird 

 at which I had fired. One of our gamekeepers, upon 

 whose knowledge and honajides I can implicitly rely, 

 assured me that he flushed a Jack Snipe from a piece 

 of boggy land near Thorpe on August 15th, 1891. 

 It is a curious coincidence that the latest lingerer of 

 this species that I ever heard of in the neighbourhood 

 of Lilford was seen on April 16th of the same year. 



This species differs in many respects from the 

 Common Snipe, in none more so than its reluctance 

 to take wing, its short flights, and its long endurance 

 of severe frost. A Jack Snipe flushed one day in a 

 particular spot, may almost certainly be found there 

 or thereabouts every day through the winter months 

 unless pursued relentlessly, and many amusing stories 

 are told of a Jack Snipe having afforded sport through 

 the season to an unskilful shooter. Now and then 

 small flights of this species drop in upon us in the 

 neighbourhood of Lilford in October and November, 

 and ten or more have been killed on the same day 

 in a ramble up our meadows by Mr. G. Hunt, who 

 seldom allowed any attainable Snipe to escape him. 

 This species, though not apparently so numerically 

 abundant as the Common Snipe, has pretty nearly as 

 wide a range in the Old World, breeding to the 

 north of the Arctic circle, and going as far south as 

 Ceylon, and the Blue Nile in winter. In my Snipe- 

 shooting experience I have found the Jack Snipe 

 more common in England and Ireland in the winter 

 months than it is in Southern Europe or North Africa. 



VOL. II. F 



