AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
229 
par; but the injury sustained from the rabbit arises much 
more from its habit of scratching and burrowing in the 
ground, than from the vegetation which it consumes; and 
as its fecundity is surprising, so its depredations become 
amazingly multiplied; and it is really astonishing in how 
short a time these diminutive animals will riddle, as it 
were, a very considerable extent of ground: nor indeed 
are they always content with burrows for the purpose of 
protection, but wherever rabbits are to be met with, num- 
bers of superficial hollows or holes will be found, which, 
it might appear, these animals had made merely by the 
way of exercise. On every view of the case, therefore, 
rabbits should be confined to sand hills and the more bar- 
ren grounds, where very little mischief can result from 
their habits, and where immense advantage may be de- 
rived from their astonishing fecundity. 
Finally, I must observe, that having paid particular at- 
tention to the subject for some years, I feel a perfect con- 
viction that much less injury is sustained from game than 
is generally imagined. I never feel the least objection to 
any of the tribe except rabbits: pheasants I regard as com- 
paratively harmless; the good which results from them 
more than counterbalances the evil; and as to partridges, 
I should scarcely object to a covey on every acre, so con- 
vinced am I of the advantages derived from them, to say 
nothing of the increased animation and beauty which they 
give to the landscape. — Sportsman’s Cabinet. 
SNIPE. 
SCO LOP AX GALLINAGO. 
[Plate XX. J. Doughty’s Collection.] 
This bird is well known to our sportsmen; and, if not 
the same, has a very near resemblance of the common 
Snipe of Europe. It is usually known by the name of 
the English Snipe, to distinguish it from the woodcock, 
and from several others of the same genus. It arrives in 
Pennsylvania about the 10th of March, and remains in the 
low grounds for several weeks; the greater part then move 
off to the north, and to the higher inland districts to breed. 
A few are occasionally found, and consequently breed in 
our low marshes during the summer. When they first 
arrive, they are usually lean; but when in good order are 
accounted excellent eating. They are, perhaps, the most 
difficult to shoot of all our birds, as they fly in sudden 
zig-zag lines, and very rapidly. Great numbers of these 
birds winter in the rice grounds of the southern states, 
M m m 
where, in the month of February, they appeared to be 
much tamer than they are usually here, as I frequently 
observed them running about among the springs and 
watery thickets. I was told by the inhabitants, that they 
generally disappeared early in the spring. On the 20th 
of March I found these birds extremely numerous on the 
borders of the ponds near Louisville, Kentucky; and also 
in the neighbourhood of Lexington, in the same state, as 
late as the 10th of April. I was told by several people, 
that they are abundant in the Illinois country, up as far as 
Lake Michigan. They are but seldom seen in Pennsyl- 
vania during the summer, but are occasionally met with 
in considerable numbers on their return in autumn, along 
the whole eastern side of the Alleghany, from the sea to 
the mountains. They have the same soaring irregular 
flight in the air in gloomy weather as the Snipe of Europe; 
the same bleating note, and occasional rapid descent; 
spring from the marshes with the like feeble squeak; and 
in every respect resemble the common Snipe of Britain, 
except in being about an inch less; and in having sixteen 
feathers in the tail instead of fourteen, the number said by 
Bewick to be in that of Europe. From these circum- 
stances, we must either conclude this to be a different 
species, or partially changed by difference of climate; the 
former appears to me the more probable opinion of the 
two. 
These birds abound in the meadows, and low grounds, 
along our large rivers, particularly those that border the 
Schuylkill and Delaware, from the 10th of March to the 
middle of April, and sometimes later, and are eagerly 
sought after by many of our gunners. The nature of the 
grounds, however, which these birds frequent, the cold- 
ness of the season, and peculiar shyness and agility of the 
game, render this amusement attractive only to the most 
dexterous, active, and eager of our sportsmen. 
The Snipe is eleven inches long, and seventeen inches 
in extent; the bill is more than two inches and a half long, 
fluted lengthwise, of a brown colour, and black towards 
the tip, where it is very smooth while the bird is alive, 
but soon after it is killed becomes dimpled like the end 
of a thimble; crown black, divided by an irregular line of 
pale brown; another broader one of the same tint passes 
over each eye; from the bill to the eye there is a narrow 
dusky line; neck, and upper part of the breast, pale brown, 
variegated with touches of white and dusky; chin, pale; 
back and scapulars deep velvetty black, the latter elegant- 
ly marbled with waving lines of ferruginous, and broadly 
edged exteriorly with white; wings plain dusky, all the 
feathers, as well as those of the coverts, tipt with white; 
shoulder of the wing deep dusky brown, exterior quill 
edged with white; tail-coverts long, reaching within three- 
