the Common Snipe, though I have not particularly noticed
this, they also, in colder climes, and beneath cloudier skies,
arc able to make better use of their wings.
Some sportsmen, it is true, think them hardly worth shooting,
but to them I should say, what I once heard an old woman
of mcthodistical tendencies, reply to our Rector, with whom she
differed on matters of grace and regeneration, "That comes
all along of your ignerencc." For of a surety, perfect in
their own way, as may be a well-fattened Ortolan in Italy, or
Quail in India, delicately enwrapped in their protecting vine leaves,
equally perfect though in another way (and far above all plebeian
Fantails and Pintails) is a plethoric Jack, who, after
glancing at t h e glowing embers, awaits, enthroned upon a toast,
your eager devotion.
It seems t o be assumed by European writers that Jacks only
feed at night; but such is assuredly not the case here, as I have
shot t h em at 9 A.M., and again at 5 P.M., in the act of feeding,
and with half-swallowed food in their throats. I dare say
they feed a good deal at night. I know that, during the heat
of the da)r, they lie up, (asleep I fancy, by the way dogs pounce
on them), but they also certainly feed both in the mornings
and towards evening. Their food, here, consists of grubs,
worms, and tiny insects, shells and Crustacea, besides
which a certain amount of green vegetable matter, minute
portions of weed, club moss and grass, as far as I could make
out, is occasionally found in their stomachs. I have never
chanced to find any seeds, but it seems certain that in Europe
they do cat grass seeds at times, and probably they do the
same here.
TIIEV do not breed within our limits. Wolley, the first ornithologist
who took their eggs, gives a long account of finding the
nests in Finland. One gathers that in the breeding season the
males career about at a great pace high in air, giving rise to a
peculiar sound, of which Wolley says that he can only liken it
to the cantering of a horse in the distance, over a hard, hollow
road. Of certain nests, which were found in the great marsh of
Muonioniska, he says :—-
"The nest of the 17th, and four of the iSth June, were all
alike in structure, made loosely of little pieces of grass and
equisetum, 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 open swamp."
The eggs, always four in number, are very large for the size
of the bird, so much so that Hewitson, in figuring them,
remarked :—•
" Were not the eggs verified beyond a doubt, no one would
credit that a bird of such small dimensions (not a great deal
larger than a Skylark) could produce them, or, having produced
them, could keep them warm. They are precisely of the same
length as those of the Snipe, but are of less width across the
broadest part. The bird weighs about two ounces ; the four
eggs are more than an ounce and a half. The great egg of the
Guillemot is one-eighth of the weight of the bird ; the eggs of
the Jack Snipe weigh nearly as much as it does itself."
In shape, the eggs are much like those of the Common Snipe,—
nearly hemispherical at one end, pulled and pinched out into
a cone, with the small end abruptly truncated and rounded off,
at the other,—but they arc narrower in proportion to their length.
In colour and markings the few I have so closely resemble
eggs of the Common Snipe, that it is useless for me to attempt
any separate description ; but Dresser says that they run into
richer (? coloured) varieties than those of this latter species.
Five eggs vary from 1-49 to 1-57 in length, and from 1*05 to
1*13 in breadth, but doubtless both smaller and larger eggs
occur.
I C A N N O T discover any constant or average difference in the
sizes of the two sexes ; they vary a great deal according to
age, but equally large and small birds of both sexes appear to
occur. The following is a resumé of my measurements:—
Length, 775 to 9"0; expanse, 13'2$ to 14-89 ; wing, 4*1 to 4*67 ;
tail, from vent, I'87 to 2M$ ; tarsus, O'Sg to 0^95 ; bill, from gape,
l'5 to 17 ; at front, 1*57 to 174 ; weight, 1-53 to 2-48 ozs.
The legs and feet arc pale greenish, at times with a bluish or a
greyish shade, generally more or less olive or yellowish ; the claws
blackish brown ; the irides deep brown ; the bill is blackish
brown at tip, and darkish brown on nares and along the commissure
; the rest paler, sometimes a pale grey brown, sometimes
with a fleshy tinge, and sometimes with a dull bluish or slatey
tinge, especially towards the base of the lower mandible.
THE PLATE is rather an ideal or Turneresque conception of
what a Jack Snipe might be, than a portrait of what a Jack
really is ; but it would not be so very bad if the red on the
crown (the central band on which is almost entirely blackish
brown) were removed, if the red on the back and scapulars,
so sadly exaggerated, were reduced in extent and toned down,
and if a pale buff or stone yellow were substituted for the
glaring white margins to the scapulars and tertiarics, and the
white tippings of the coverts toned down a little. If, besides
this, the whole breast were given a fawny brown shade, and the
streaks were rendered a little less harsh and regular, I do not
think that there would be much fault to find with the plate.
Luckily the species is not one that can be mistaken for any
other ; but I may note that its tail consists of twelve soft, more or
less pointed, feathers, the central pair the most pointed of all,