THE JACK SNIPE, 379 
them, could keep them warm. They are precisely of the same 
length as those of the Snipe, but are of less width across the 
broadest part. The bird weighs about two ounces; the four 
eggs are more than an ounce anda half. The great egg of the 
Guillemot is one-eighth of the weight of the bird; the eggs of 
the Jack Snipe weigh nearly as much as it does itself.” 
In shape, the eggs are much like those of the Common Snipe,— 
nearly hemispherical at one end, pulled and pinched out into 
a cone, with the small end abruptly truncated and rounded off, 
at the other,—but they are narrower in proportion to their length. 
In colour and markings the few I have so closely resemble 
eggs of the Common Snipe, that it is useless for me to attempt 
any separate description; but Dresser says that they run into 
richer (? coloured) varieties than those of this latter species. 
Five eggs vary from 1°49 to 1°57 in length, and from 1°05 to 
I'13 in breadth, but doubtless both smaller and larger eggs 
occur. 
I CANNOT discover any constant or average difference in the 
sizes of the two sexes ; they vary a great deal according to 
age, but equally large and small birds of both sexes appear to 
occur. The following isa vesumé of my measurements :— 
Mength, 775 tO O10; expanse, 13:25 to 14°30; wing, 4:1 to 4:67 ; 
tail, from vent, 1°87 to 2°5; tarsus, 0°89 to 0°95 ; bill, from gape, 
RerOt 7 ation, 157 to 1-74); weight, 153 to 2:48 0zs. 
The legs and feet are pale greenish, at times with a bluish ora 
greyish shade, generally more or less olive or yellowish ; the claws 
blackish brown ; the irides deep brown; the bill is blackish 
brown at tip, and darkish brown on nares and along the com- 
missure ; the rest paler, sometimes a pale grey brown, sometimes 
with a fleshy tinge, and sometimes with a dull bluish or slatey 
tinge, especially towards the base of the lower mandible. 
THE PLATE is rather an ideal or Turneresque conception of 
what a Jack Snipe might be, than a portrait of what a Jack 
really is; but it would not be so very bad if the red on the 
crown (the central band on which is almost entirely blackish 
brown) were removed, if the red on the back and scapulars, 
so sadly exaggerated, were reduced in extent and toned down, 
and if a pale buff or stone yellow were substituted for the 
glaring white margins to the scapulars and tertiaries, and the 
white tippings of the coverts toned down a little. If, besides 
this, the whole breast were given a fawny brown shade, and the 
streaks were rendered a little less harsh and regular, I do not 
think that there would be much fault to find with the plate. 
Luckily the species is not one that can be mistaken for any 
other ; but I may note that its tail consists of twelve soft, more or 
less pointed, feathers, the central pair the most pointed of all, 
