276 
SCOLOPACIM. 
all (Jard., Macg.). This bird is not known out of the British 
Islands^ and there only as one of which a few individuals have 
fallen beneath the guns of snipe- shooters. Of its breeding- 
haunts, &c., we are wholly ignorant, so that the Sabine snipe is 
one of the greatest puzzles in Ornithology. For some time 
past I have not felt altogether satisfied respecting its distinctness 
as a species from the common snipe [Scol. gaUinago) on account 
of the great similarity of the structural clxaracters. A specimen 
kindly sent for my examination in March, 1849, from the museum 
of Trinity College, Dublin, by Mr. B. Ball, presented the following 
measurements, as compared with a common snipe : — 
Sabine snipe. Comm, snipe. 
Inch. Line. Inch. Line. 
Length total (of stuffed specimens, and hence uncertain) 10 8 11 3 
of bill above . . . . . . .2 9 2 10^ 
tarsus ....... 1 3x 14 
middle toe and nail ..,..14 15 
wing from carpus ..... 5 0 5 0 
First quill feather of the Sabine snipe the longest in the wing : as it also was in that 
of two common snipes examined at the same time. 
The tail feathers of 8. Sabini are described to be twelve in 
number, but this bird had thirteen, having, of course, lost one, 
which would have made the number the same as in the S. galli- 
nago. Mr. Davis, too, notices his bird as having thirteen tail 
feathers. The two exterior toes of 8. 8abini are described to be 
“ united to the base for a short distance but they were not in 
the least so in the specimen under consideration nor in that de- 
scribed by Mr. Davis. The tarsi of 8. 8abini are described to be 
^ of an inch shorter than those of 8. gaUinago ; but in the two 
individuals of which dimensions are here given, they are only 
nominally, or ~ shorter. Adult common snipes could doubtless be 
found to vary of an inch in the length of their tarsi. When it 
is added that the tarsi are said to be stouter in 8. 8abini than 
in 8. gaUinago, the whole of the structural differences pointed 
out in the original description of Mr. Vigors are included. 
In fresh birds only (which I have not seen) could this well be 
observed; the dried one which I examined in reference to this 
