SNIPE-SABINE'S. 



469 



white ; cheeks, neck, and upper breast, mottled with black and light 

 ferruginous ; the back and scapulars are black, barred with ferruginous- 

 brown, and striped with yellowish buff-colour, in longitudinal lines ; the 

 quills are black, the first edged with white ; the secondaries tipped with 

 the same ; those next the body are, with their coverts, striated, and 

 barred with light ferruginous ; lower breast and belly white ; vent brown ; 

 upper tail coverts brown, barred with black ; the tail consists of four- 

 teen black feathers, barred and spotted with dull orange-red towards 

 the end, with a narrow bar of black near the tip, where it is pale 

 rufous ; legs vary ; in some dusky or lead-colour, others green. 



This is a plentiful species in most parts of England ; and is found in 

 all situations, in high as well as low lands, depending much on the 

 weather. In very wet times it resorts to the hills ; at other times fre- 

 quents marshes, where it can penetrate its bill into the earth after 

 worms, which are its principal food. 



Some few remain with us the whole year, and breed in the more 

 extensive marshes and mountainous bogs. We have frequently taken 

 the young before they could fly, in the north of England, and in Scot- 

 land. Near Penryn, in Cornwall, there is a marsh where several breed 

 annually, and where we have taken their eggs, which are four in num- 

 ber, of an olivaceous colour, blotched and spotted with rufous-brown ; 

 some with dusky blotches at the larger end. The nest is made of the 

 materials around it ; coarse grass, and sometimes heath. It is placed 

 on a stump or dry spot, near a splash or swampy place ; the eggs, like 

 those of the lapwing, placed invariably with their ends inwards, being 

 much pointed ; their weight three drams and a half. 



In the breeding season, the Snipe changes its note entirely from that 

 it makes in the winter. The male will keep on wing for an hour together, 

 mounting like a lark, uttering a shrill, piping noise ; it then descends 

 with great velocity, making a bleating sound, not unlike an old goat, 

 which is repeated alternately round the spot possessed by the female, 

 especially while she is sitting on her nest. This bird has been met 

 with in almost every part of the world. 



SNIPE-SABINE'S (Vigors.) 



*Scolopax Sabini, Linn. Trans. 14. p. 557 Ftem. Br. Anim. p. 106. 



In length this rare species measures about nine inches and three- 

 tenths ; bill two inches and three quarters, of a brownish-black colour ; 

 the upper mandible inclining to chestnut at the base ; tarsi one inch 

 and a quarter ; the plumage brownish-black ; the margin of the feathers 

 chestnut, dusky on the back ; tail-feathers black at the base, with fer- 

 ruginous bands towards the tip. The absence of white, and the stripes 



