THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
black, but occasionally pure white, especially in Asiatic birds. Iris 
hazel ; bill dark brown, paler at the base and darker at the tip; legs and 
toes greenish-grey. 
Male. — ^Total length 11 inches; bill from the feathers on the forehead 
to the tip 2*6 inches to 2*8 inches ; wing 5’2 inches ; tail 2 3 inches ; tarsus 
1*2 inch. 
Female. — Similar to the male, but rather larger. 
Young in first autumn-plumage. — Differs from the adult in being more 
rufous, especially on the throat and neck. The black markings on the 
back are more broken up and mottled with rufous bars; the pale buff 
bands along the back formed by the outer webs of the elongate dorsal 
feathers and scapulars are not so wide, and the lower back is blackish, 
and lacks the white bars on the tips of the feathers found in the adult. 
Young in down. — Dark orange -chestnut, mottled with black and frosted 
with white above. A black band at the base of the bill, a second across 
the crown between the eyes, and short black bands from the bill to the 
eye and on the cheeks. The white downy plumes are mostly arranged 
in bands across the head, cheeks, neck and down the back. 
Variations in plumage. — Light -coloured, buff, and partly or entirely 
white specimens are occasionally met with, and are sometimes very 
handsome birds; but by far the most curious and interesting variety 
is the dark form known as Sabine’s snipe. It has the general colour above 
black, barred with rufous and the underparts evenly barred with rufous 
and black. The buff stripes down the back and scapulars, so characteristic 
of the ordinary snipe, are entirely absent, also the white outer web of the 
first flight -feathers. This description refers to typical examples, but other 
forms occur which are intermediate between Sabine’s and the ordin- 
arily coloured snipe. Almost all the examples of Sabine’s snipe known, 
nearly sixty in number, have been killed in the British Isles. 
General distribution. — ^The range of the common snipe is even more extensive 
than that of the woodcock ; not only is it met with in the breeding-season 
further north in Europe and Asia, being found up to about 70° north lati- 
tude, but extends to Iceland, the Faroes and South Greenland. Its southern 
breeding-range is chiefly confined to mountain-ranges, and includes the 
southern slopes of the Alps, the marshes of Northern Italy and South 
Russia and, further east, Turkestan, the lofty table -lands of Yarkand and 
South-east Mongolia. That the species occasionally remains to breed in 
the Azores is certain, for on the high ground on the Island of Flores I shot 
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