BRITISH BIRDS. 
69 
to each eye, and the auriculars form fpots of the 
fame colour : the chin and fore part of the neck 
are yellowifli white, the former plain, the lat- 
ter fpotted with brown. The fcapulars are elegant- 
ly ftriped lengthwife on one web, and barred on 
the other with black and yellow : the quills are 
dufky, the edge of the primaries, and tips of the 
fecondaries, white ; thofe next to the back barred 
with black, and pale rufous : the bread and belly are 
white : the tail coverts are of a reddilh brown, and 
fo long as to cover the greater part of it : the tail 
confifts of fourteen feathers, the webs of which, as 
far as they are concealed by the coverts, are dufky, 
thence downward, tawney or rufly orange, and ir- 
regularly marked or eroded with black. The tip 
is commonly of a pale reddifh yellow, but in fome 
fpecimens nearly white : the legs are pale green. * 
The common refidence of the Snipe is in fmall 
bogs or wet grounds, where it is almofl con- 
ftantly digging and nibbling in the foft mud, in 
fearch of its food, v/hich confids chiefly of a very 
fmall kind of red tranfparent worm, about half 
an inch long ; it is faid alfo to eat flugs, and the 
^ Mr Tunftall mentions a very curious pied Snipe which 
was fhot in Bottley meadow, near Oxford, September 8, 1789, 
by a Mr Court ; its throat, breaft, back and wings were beauti- 
fully covered or ftreaked with white, and on its forehead was a 
flar of the natural colour ; it had alfo a ring round the neck 
and the tail, with the tips of the wings of the fame colour.” 
