& ALLIN AGO GALLINULA. 
831 
for its habit of lying close, being difficult to flush, taking short flights, and suddenly dropping again ; when 
fi-ed at and missed "repeatedly, as I have seen happen, it refuses to leave the locality which it has selected, 
darting- aW ay each time with its extraordinary zigzag flight, circling round, and then twisting sideways, suddenly 
disappears in the grass. This irregularity in its flight makes it very difficult to hit. The speed with which it 
flies is not equal to that of its relations, hut it is more than compensated for by the erratic course which it takes. 
It is not a sociable bird, as a rule, not more than two or three being found in the same locality, winch are 
flushed at some little distance from one another; and it often occurs that it is the solitary occupant of some 
little morass. Col. Irby, however, observes that in Southern Spain (where its favourite haunts were the ojos, 
or land-springs, at the edges of the marisma) it collected in little assemblies before migrating. He thus writes 
of it Towaidt the enl of February, Jack Snipes assemble together very much^and th.s gather, ng of them 
is a sure prelude to the general departure of most of the Snipes for the north. The Seri e 
present speeies that 1 ever saw anywhere was in some of the ojos westward 0 Co„a del Kio near Se " ’ ’ 
these circular spots, about 10 yards in diameter, are very muddy and sparingly covered with short sed m 
Many of them held fifteen or a dozen Jack Snipe, and the often-cited but imaginary individual who 
to have found a single Jack Snipe afford him sport for months, until his friend iinluckdy lulled it would 
indeed, have been in happy hunting-grounds.” In extensive swamps of the Delta of the Nile, Von Heuglm 
found it sin "l V or in more or less scattered companies, frequenting places which were thickly overgrown with 
rushes in both fresh and brackish water; and he remarks that in that locality it preferred the vicinity of the 
sea to affecting the sides of streams. In very hard weather it lies very close, even though it be feeding m a 
comparatively open spot, such as in running water at the edge of a stream, from which I have flushed it, and 
noticed it fly off rather heavily, with an even flight. Its diet sometimes consists of minute shellfish I recently 
found the stomach of a specimen I skinned crammed with tiny bivalves, measuring one eighth ot an inch m 
diameter, and which apparently belonged to the genus Sphcerium. 
Nidification . — In Europe the Jack Snipe breeds during the month of June, resorting to the great swamps 
in Lapland to nest. In 1853, Mr. Wolley, the celebrated oologist, found several nests m the great marsh of 
Mnonioniska ; he describes them as being “ made loosely of little pieces of grass and Eqmsetum not at all 
woven together with a few old leaves of the dwarf birch, placed in a dry sedgy or grassy spot close to more 
onen swamps The female sits so closely that it will almost suffer itself to he caught. Mr. Wolley writes 
with reference to the nests which he found “ In the course of the day and night I found three more nests, 
and examined the birds of each. One allowed me to touch it with my hand before it rose ; and another only got 
up when my foot was within 6 inches of it.” The eggs are enormously large in proportion to the size of the 
bird four of them being said to weigh H oz. I am indebted to Mr. Dresser for an opportunity of examining a 
small series of five which were collected in Lapland. They are stone-huff, with an olivaceous tmge on 
two, and are pyriform in shape, some more pointed than others at the small end ; they are handsomely 
marked with large blotches and clouds of deep sepia, collected in some specimens in the form of a cap, and m 
others in a zone round the large end, besides which there are other tolerably large blots on the smaller half ; 
under these lie blotches of bluish grey, which in one egg are very large and dark and take a transverse 
direction ; at the larger end there are some fine dark pencillings in one or two examples. In size they vary 
in length from L47 to L55, and in breadth from LOG to 1 11. 
During the breeding-season, the Jack Snipe makes a peculiar noise on the wing, which is considers o 
be akin to that made by the Common Snipe. Mr. Wolley, who discovered this habit writes to Mr Ilewiston 
as follows concerning it It was on the 17th of June 1853, in the great marsh of Muomomska, ^t I first 
heard the Jack-Snipe, though at the time I could not at all guess what it was -an extraordinary Bound, i . 
any thin- I had heard before; I could not tell from what direction it came; and it filled me with a curious 
surprise ° My Finnish interpreter thought it was a Capercally, and at that time I could not contradict him 
hut soon I found that it was a small bird gliding at a wild pace at a great height over the marsh. know not 
how better to describe the noise than by likening it to the cantering ofahorse m the distance, ovei a ai oow 
road • it came in fours with a similar cadence, and a like clear yet hollow sound. It was not long 
after I heard it that I ascertained that the remarkable hammering noise m the air was made by the Jack- 
Snipe.” 
