By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



65 



and Wiltshire is one of the counties named by Montagu in which 

 it had then been observed. The late Mr. Marsh reported that one 

 was killed in Winterslow Wood, in 1831, and he had himself seen 

 a specimen in Christian Malford, though he was not able to obtain 

 it : and the Rev. George Powell tells me of one killed in South 

 Wilts, in 1854; and quite lately of another killed by his brother, 

 at Hurdcott, on the 25th September, 1868 : when from some 

 unexplained cause these birds were extraordinarily numerous in 

 many parts of England : and I have notices of another killed on 

 Salisbury Plain, another at Milton, near Pewsey, and of several 

 others on the borders of the county. It is often called the "Solitary " 

 Snipe, as it was supposed, though it seems erroneously, to shun the 

 society of its fellows. It is also called the "Double" Snipe, from 

 its size: the "Silent" Snipe, from its uttering no cry as it rises 

 on the wing ; and the " Meadow " Snipe, from its habit of frequent- 

 ing fields of long coarse grass, whence it is also designated by the 

 Germans " Wiesen Schncpfe." It is rarely seen in England but in 

 the autumn : in summer I have met with it in Norway, where it 

 retires to breed on the vast wild fjelds of that thinly populated 

 country. The principal points wherein it differs from the Common 

 Snipe, are its greater size and heavier form ; its smaller and shorter 

 beak ; its stouter and shorter legs ; and the under plumage invariably 

 barred with brown and white, which in the commoner species is 

 pure white. It also flies more like a Woodcock than a Snipe, and 

 when on the wing, spreads its tail like a fan. 



" Common Snipe." (Scolopax gallinacjo.) It is unquestionable 

 that these birds once so numerous here in winter, are gradually 

 becoming perceptibty scarcer every year. This may be attributed 

 to the general increase of draining, and the reclaiming of fens and 

 marshes ; so that, like the Red Indian in America, the Snipe will 

 soon be improved off the face of this country by the rapid advance 

 of high farming. In Wiltshire and the more southern parts of 

 England, it is a true migrant, arriving in the autumn and depart- 

 ing in the spring; but in more northern counties many pairs 

 remain annually to breed in the moors or fens. The shrill alarm 

 cry of this bird, and its peculiar zigzag flight are too well known 



