THE GllEAT SNIPE. 
259 
before seen, though he had been present at the death of many 
hundred snipes in the north of Ireland. A snipe was shot near 
Belfast by a sporting friend, about the 1st of November, 1837, 
that from size and colour he at first sight thought to be a 
woodcock : — a few winters previously he had killed a similar bird. 
In May 1842, Lieut. Kempe, R.N. — of the Coast Guard Service 
—then stationed at Cushendun, describing the species admirably, 
assured me that he had shot tliree examples of it, one in England 
and tw^o in the south of Ireland. Mr. E. Davis, jun., of Clonmel, 
who, like myself, has not met with Irish specimens of the bird, is 
of opinion that it has occurred in a few instances in his neigh- 
bourhood — four or five, in that number of years — and mentions 
what he believes to be this species, being called by sportsmen the 
Solitary, and the Silent Snipe. On Eebruary the 2nd, 1837, he 
remarked — A friend of mine spent haK a day, about a month 
since, in pursuit of one, but could not get a shot at it.'’^ 
T. W. Warren, Esq., of Dublin, informed me, on November 
the 17th, 1841, that the first he had seen of these snipes 
was then in course of being preserved by Mr. Glennon. It was 
shot a few days before in the county of Xildare. On my calling 
the attention of Mr. E. Ball to it, he replied, that he too con- 
sidered the bird to be Scolopax major, that it w^eighs eiglit 
ounces, is barred on the belly, and wants the lumbar plumes of 
sharp feathers possessed by the common and the jack snipe.^^ 
Through the same means, I heard of another of these birds, that 
was shot on the btli of December, 1845, in the county of 
Leitrim, by an officer of the 32nd regiment, and sent in a fresh 
state to the taxidermist just named. The attention of the gentle- 
man mentioned in the latter instance being called to this specimen, 
he believed it to be S. major, adding that : — One foot was shot 
away, and the tarsus of the other so injured that measurement 
was out of the question ; the wing from the carpal joint is rather 
more than 5^ inches ; the bill 2i inches ; middle toe and nail 
If inches.'’^ 
In November 1836, Captain (now Major) T. Walker, of Bel- 
mont, Wexford, wrote to me respecting the occasional occurrence 
s 2 
