G ALLIN AGO SCOLOPACINA. 
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flushed, it generally flies off uttering the well-known sca-a-pe or piping cry peculiar to its genus, and almost 
invariably proceeds against the wind. When wild, it mounts in the air, and, if it has been walked up “ down- 
wind ” after getting out of shot turns round against wind and flies off’ with a tumbling flight, proceeding from 
side to side in its course ; and well up in the air, seen against a cold grey English sky, it looks twice the size it 
does when rising out of the grass. 
When observed in northern regions during the time of its nidification its habits are very interesting, and 
the life of concealment which it leads with us during the winter is changed for one of animation and excite- 
ment. Its habit of “ drumming ” or making a humming noise while flying over its nest has been the subject 
of much discussion and difference of opinion; and I will refer to the matter in the “Nidification” of the species. 
Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie Brown have published some interesting notes on the species as observed by them 
on the Petchora river. Northern Russia, which I here transcribe : — “We were not a little surprised when we 
first became acquainted with the arboreal habits of the Snipe at Habariki, and saw one of these birds perched, 
70 feet from the ground, on the topmost upright twig of a bare larch, where, one would have thought, it could 
scarcely find sufficient foothold. With its head lower than its body and tail, it sat there, uttering at intervals the 
curious double ‘ clucking’ note, tjick-tjuck, tjick-tjuck, whilst others of the same species were ‘ drumming’ high 
in the air over the marsh. To put all beyond doubt, Harvie Brown shot one in this peculiar position. Nor is 
the Common Snipe the only bird which, not practising the habit with us, we found perching freely in Northern 
Russia : the Snow-Bunting and Pipits have already been instanced ; and we may also mention the Common 
Gull, as will be seen under the notice of that species further on There can be little doubt, we imagine, 
that this habit was induced, in the first instance, by the flooding of great tracts of country by the annual over- 
flow of the rivers in spring, just at the time of the passage of the migratory flights, and, further, that what 
was originally forced upon them has become, by use, a favourite habit. 
In India the great resorts of the Common Snipe are the paddy- or rice-fields in the cultivated districts 
of the empire; and here very large bags are made by good shots. Jerdon speaks of 100 couples being killed 
to one gun in the south of India even ; but among these no doubt was a large proportion of the last species. 
Although the popular idea obtains that Snipe only feed on “suction,” i. e. on the liquid, impregnated with 
minute larvae, which is obtained by boring in the mud with their long bills, a much greater quantity of animal 
matter is consumed by them than these advocates of the suction-theory imagine. Good-sized aquatic insects, 
particularly of the beetle order, and occasionally tolerably large worms, maybe found in their stomachs; and 
it is pretty certain that a Snipe will never refuse to swallow any worms that it meets with. 
Col. Irby, in his ‘ Birds of Gibraltar/ mentions that the best ground for Snipe in Morocco and Andalucia 
is “where sedges and rushes had been burnt during the summer;” but, there being no cover in such places, 
it was “ useless to try and walk up to the birds, and the only way was to stand or sit perfectly still in the 
most favourite spot and await their return.” 
In Egypt their favourite haunts, according to Captain Shelley, are the large marshes in the delta of the 
Nile, in which he has killed more than forty couple in a day. Von Heuglin remarks that in February and 
March a good shot can, under favourable circumstances, kill from sixty to eighty head a day in the same district. 
Very large bags were formerly made on the Irish bogs, rivalling, in fact, those of Indian sportsmen; but 
now-a-days, since drainage has made such alterations, Snipe-shooting is not what it used to be, and twenty 
couple would he considered a very good bag. I am informed that a gentleman last year killed thirty-seven 
couple on Sir Arthur Guiness’s estate in Galway ; and an account has been given to me, on good author it}, 
of the late Mr. John Dennis, master of a celebrated pack of Galway hounds, having made a wager that he 
would shoot fifty couple, which feat he more than accomplished by killing forty before 11 o’clock, and finishing 
with a total of eighty-four couple before night. This was more than forty years ago. 
Nidification. — This Snipe’s eggs have not, to my knowledge, been taken in India ; but there is reason to 
believe that it may possibly breed occasionally in Cashmir, as it does so on the other side of the range in 
Kashgar. Mr. W. Brooks, writing to Mr. Hume, has the following remark on its summer occurrence in 
Cashmir ■ “ I saw a Common Snipe soariug away above when I took the Mallard s nest (near one ot the 
Cashmir lakes) ; and as it was making its breeding, bleating, and drumming noise, doubtless its mate was 
sitting on its nest below, though I failed to find it.” Dr. Scully found it breeding at Yarkand in May and 
