THE JACK SNIPE 



The first authentic account of the nest of this species was given by Wooley, 

 who found the bird breeding at Muonioniska in Lapland in June 1853. In a 

 communication to Hewitson (Eggs Brit. Birds, ed. 3, ii. p. 357) he describes the 

 nest as "all alike in structure, made loosely of little pieces of grass and equisetum 

 not all woven together, with a few old leaves of the dwarf birch, placed in a dry 

 sedgy or grassy spot close to more open swamp." The four eggs, which are very 

 large in proportion to the bird, are of a yellowish-olive colour, blotched and spotted 

 with dark brown. 



The food is similar to that of the Common Snipe. Wooley, in his letter to 

 Hewitson, alludes to the curious "drumming" made by the Jack Snipe in spring. 

 He says, " I know not better how 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 but hollow sound." Besides being much smaller, 

 the Jack Snipe differs considerably from the Common Snipe in colour, having a 

 glossy sheen of green and purple on the upper parts, and it lacks the pale buffish 

 streak on the centre of the crown and forehead of the larger species. The tail is 

 sharply pointed. 



The two birds also differ in character, the present species being rather solitary 

 in its habits and more sluggish than the other, while it is much less affected by 

 severe weather, due doubtless to the fact, as Mr. R. J. Howard informs me, that it 

 adds vegetable matter to its diet of worms and larvae. 



THE BROAD-BILLED SANDPIPER. 



Limicola platyrkyncha (Temminck). 

 Plate 65. 



The Broad-billed Sandpiper, represented in the plate in summer plumage, is a 

 rare straggler to our shores, about sixteen having been recorded in Great Britain, 

 mostly on the southern and eastern coasts, and only one in Ireland. 



It breeds on the mountains in Scandinavia, in Northern Russia, and probably 

 in Siberia, and migrates in winter, when it visits most of the European countries, 

 Egypt, Southern Asia, the Philippines, and Madagascar. 



Quoting some notes on this species by the late Richard Dann, " Yarrell " (4th 

 ed. vol. iii. p. 365) states, "This Sandpiper is by no means uncommon during the 

 breeding-season in Lulea and Tornea Lapmark, frequenting grassy morasses and 

 swamps in small colonies, generally in the same places as those frequented by the 



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