272 
SCOLOPACID/E. 
of an ornithological friend to-day to the very dark colour of 
two snipes received from Coleraine, he remarked, that most 
probably they were birds bred in more northern countries, as he 
well recollected that all wliich were shot out of the multitudinous 
numbers which appeared in the ‘‘bog meadows ^ in August, 1828, 
were peculiarly dark in plumage. It would be singular if we 
could thus distinguish a foreign from a native bred snipe.^'’* IHvo 
white snipes killed near Belfast have come under the notice 
of a friend. In the winter of 1831-32, several crested snipes 
were shot in the bogs near the town just named by three of my 
sporting acquaintances, to the gun of one of whom two or three 
fell on the same day in the King^s Moss. The crest of one which 
came under my inspection extended for nine lines from the lower 
portion of the entire back of the head in a horizontal manner. 
Close to the head only, the feathers were brown and black, all the 
rest being white : this crest arose from a warty protuberance. 
It is extraordinary that so many with crests should occur about 
the same time as I had not before, nor have I since met with any 
but a single individual (in Dec. 1841) having such an appendage. 
This specimen exhibited a row of feathers projecting in a drooping 
manner four hues from the lower part of the back of the head ; 
the portion of them which projected beyond the ordinary plu- 
mage were of a white colour.f A snipe, larger than usual, and 
of a delicate cream-coloured white, with the wing-coverts of a 
very light brown, was shot near Cork, in Dec. 1846.J Mr. 11. 
Chute remarks that he has ^^occasionally seen snipe in Kerry 
as yellow as a canary."’^ Two birds of this species killed in 
Ireland, having five toes on each foot, have come under the notice 
of a correspondent. 
* See remarks on the light colour of native-bred woodcocks at p. 254. 
t Mr, DiUwyn mentions a variety of the woodcock being sent to him on the 29th 
of January, 1826, with a tuft of white feathers on the head. — ‘Fauna, &c., of 
Swansea,’ p. 8. 
t Mr. W. A. Hackett. 
