280 
SCOLOPACID^. 
shot/^ The jack snipe differs from almost all other birds in 
having greatly increased in numbers of late years in the north of 
Ireland. An old sportsman assures me that in his early days it 
was a rarity^ and that not more than one would be met with in 
the course of six or seven days^ snipe-shooting. ^ 
In the winter of 1831-32, these birds were particularly nume- 
rous in the north of Ireland. Although the species does not, 
like the common snipe, habitually change its quarters, it occa- 
sionally does so during the period of its stay, as I have known 
the same bogs to be equally well hunted by the same dogs, and 
when there was equally good scenting, produce double the number 
one day that they would do the next. I have seen four and a half 
brace killed (Dec. 15th, 1831) on ground, upon which not a 
bird could be found two days before, though a superior scenting 
day to the other. 
Major Walker, of Belmont, near Wexford, states that the jack 
snipe arrives there in autumn, about a week before the wood- 
cock,* and that in the mountain of Forth both species gather in 
numbers before taking their departure northward in the spring. 
I never heard of the jack snipe thus congregating elsewhere. 
With respect to the breeding of this bird in Ireland, Mr. R. 
Ball has met with it in the Dublin mountains at midsummer; 
and a friend of his once shot several individuals there early 
in August. Different persons have told me (without supplying 
proof) of its breeding in certain localities ; but the dunlin has often 
been mistaken for it on the moors in the breeding-season. On 
the following testimony of Mr. G. Jackson, gamekeeper, (commu- 
nicated in May 1849,) I however feel certain of its having bred : — • 
I have known some few instances of the jack snipe breeding 
in this country. In the year 1834 I found a nest containing four 
eggs and the old bird sitting on them, in a large swampy bog, 
about three miles from the town of Ballyhannis (co. Mayo), the pro- 
perty of Lord Dillon. The following year I found two young birds 
* Sir Humphrey Davy remai’ks in the notes to ‘ Salmonia,’ that in the south of 
Illyria, the jack snipe is always later in its passage than the double snipe or the 
woodcock. 
