THE JACK SNIPE. 
385 
brown_, tinged with rufous and mottled with whitish ; remainder of lower 
plumage white ; axillaries white mottled with pale brown. 
Bill bluish at the base^ black towards the tip ; irides deep brown ; legs 
and feet greenish grey. (Jerdon.) 
Length 8 inches_, tail 2, wing 4-2, tarsus "9, bill from gape 1*7. The 
female is of the same size. 
The Jack Snipe is a very rare visitor to Burmah^ and I do not know of 
more than three or four instances of its occurrence in this country. I 
have never personally seen a specimen shot in Burmali ; but Mr. Hume 
notes one killed near Rangoon_, one at Tonghoo^ and another near the 
mouth of the Bassein Creek . On the whole the sportsman in Burmah 
may congratulate himself when he bags a Jack Snipe^ for it is no doubt 
an excessively rare bird. 
In summer this Snipe inhabits the more northern portions of Europe 
and Asia; in winter it migrates south_, being then found throughout 
Europe, the northern portion of Africa_, and more or less over the whole of 
Asia as far south as Ceylon and eastwards to Eormosa. 
The Jack Snipe will of course only be found in Burmah m the winter 
months. It affects much the same sort of ground as the Common Snipe, 
but is more restricted in its choice of locality, being fonder of dense cover^ 
such as that which grows up in the neglected corners of helds. 
In Northern Europe the Jack Snipe breeds in June, laying four eggs in 
a depression in the ground, which is lined with a little grass and dead 
leaves. 
The small size of this Snipe coupled with its rich coloration and its tail 
of twelve soft feathers, of which the central two project beyond the others 
a short distance,, will enable any one, however inexperienced, to identify it 
at once. 
G. nemoricola, the Wood- Snipe, was observed by Mr. Davison in the 
south of Tenasserim (S. F. vi. p. 459) ; but as he did not actually secure 
the bird he saw, there is a possibility of a mistake^ and I consequently do 
not insert it in my work, but content myself with giving Dr. Jerdon^s 
account of its plumage"^. 
* GALLINAGO NEMOEICOLA. 
Top of the head black, with rufous-yellow longish markings ; upper part of back black, 
the feathers margined with pale rufous-yellow, and often smeared bluish ; scapulars the 
same, some of them with zigzag markings ; long dorsal plumes black with zigzag marks 
of rufous-grey, as are most of the wing-coverts ; wingiet and primary-coverts dusky black 
faintly edged whitish ; quills dusky ; lower back and upper tail-coverts barred reddish and 
dusky ; tail with the central feathers black at the base, chestnut with dusky bars towards 
the tip j laterals dusky with whitish bars ; beneath the chin white, the sides of the neck 
ashy smeared with buff and blackish, breast ashy smeared with buff and obscurely barred ; 
the rost of the lower plumage, with the thigii-co verts, whitish with niiuieroud duaK^ uars 
VOL. II. 2 c 
