THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
Young in down . — According to Seebohm, closely resembles that of the 
common snipe. I have never examined a specimen. 
Variations in colour . — Abnormally coloured examples of the jack snipe 
are very uncommon, but a melanism comparable to the dark form of the 
common species known as Sabine’s snipe has been met with. 
General distribution . — In summer the range of the jack snipe extends 
irregularly across Northern Europe and Asia from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific Oceans, and it is most numerous to the north of the Arctic Circle. 
It breeds on the Dovrefjeld, above the limits of forest growth, and on 
the tundras of Lapland and Western Russia, as far south as St Petersburg. 
To the east of Archangel it appears to be uncommon, and Seebohm did 
not find it nesting either on the Petchora or on the Yenesei. 
Eastwards, however, it breeds as far north as 70° N. lat., south of the 
Taimyr Peninsula, and probably also in north-eastern Siberia. South 
of about 60° N. lat. it must be regarded as a migrant, and in autumn 
visits the Mediterranean and Africa north of the Sahara, from Morocco 
to Egypt, as well as Persia, Afghanistan, India, Ceylon and Burma. It 
has also occurred frequently during the cold season in Japan, and has 
been obtained once in Formosa in the month of December. 
The jack snipe has no very close ally, and though in general outward 
appearance it resembles the true snipe, it possesses a number of peculiar 
structural characters which seem fully to entitle it to generic distinction. 
These are internally the peculiar structure of the syrinx, described below ; 
the presence of four notches in the posterior margin of the sternum ; 
and externally, the structure of the tail, which is composed of twelve 
pointed feathers, nearly uniform in colour, and the purple and green 
gloss on the feathers of the back and shoulders. 
At a meeting of the British Ornithologists’ Club, held on February 14, 
1912, Mr W. P. Pycraft gave a brief description of the syrinx of the jack 
snipe, comparing it with that of the common snipe and the woodcock. 
He showed that the syrinx of the jack snipe (fig. 1, p. 279) differed not 
only from that of its immediate allies, but from all other members of the 
plover -tribe hitherto described. As in the snipe and woodcock, the syringeal 
chamber was formed by a fusion of the four hindmost tracheal rings, 
though in the jack snipe the lower ends of the rings remained more or 
less cartilaginous, forming a subcrescentic plate of cartilage in the middle 
line of the ventral aspect of the chamber. Closely attached by fibrous tissue 
to the hinder border of the syringeal chamber was a semi -ring, which 
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