SNIPE-SABINE’S. 
469 
white ; cheeks, neck, and upper breast, mottled with black and light 
ferruginous ; the back and scapulars are black, barred with ferruginous- 
brown, and striped with yellowish buff-colour, in longitudinal lines ; the 
quills are black, the first edged with white ; the secondaries tipped with 
the same ; those next the body are, with their coverts, striated, and 
barred with light ferruginous; lower breast and belly white ; vent brown ; 
upper tail coverts brown, barred with black ; the tail consists of four- 
teen black feathers, barred and spotted with dull orange-red towards 
the end, with a narrow bar of black near the tip, where it is pale 
rufous ; legs vary ; in some dusky or lead-colour, others green. 
This is a plentiful species in most parts of England ; and is found in 
all situations, in high as well as low lands, depending much on the 
weather. In very wet times it resorts to the hills ; at other times fre- 
quents marshes, where it can penetrate its bill into the earth after 
worms, which are its principal food. 
Some few remain with us the whole year, and breed in the more 
extensive marshes and mountainous bogs. We have frequently taken 
the young before they could fly, in the north of England, and in Scot- 
land. Near Penryn, in Cornwall, there is a marsh where several breed 
annually, and where we have taken their eggs, which are four in num- 
ber, of an olivaceous colour, blotched and spotted with rufous-brown ; 
some with dusky blotches at the larger end. The nest is made of the 
materials around it ; coarse grass, and sometimes heath. It is placed 
on a stump or dry spot, near a splash or swampy place ; the eggs, like 
those of the lapwing, placed invariably with their ends inwards, being 
much pointed ; their weight three drams and a half. 
In the breeding season, the Snipe changes its note entirely from that 
it makes in the winter. The male will keep on wing for an hour together, 
mounting like a lark, uttering a shrill, piping noise ; it then descends 
with great velocity, making a bleating sound, not unlike an old goat, 
which is repeated alternately round the spot possessed by the female, 
especially while she is sitting on her nest. This bird has been met 
with in almost every part of the world. 
SNIPE-SABINE’S (Vigors.) 
*Scolopax Sabini, Linn. Trans. 14. p. 557. — Flem. Br, Anirn. p. 106. 
In length this rare species measures about nine inches and three- 
tenths ; bill two inches and three quarters, of a brownish-black colour ; 
the upper mandible inclining to chestnut at the base ; tarsi one inch 
and a quarter ; the plumage brownish-black ; the margin of the feathers 
chestnut, dusky on the back ; tail-feathers black at the base, with fer- 
ruginous bands towards the tip. The absence of white, and the stripes 
