COMMON SNIPE.
YSNYDXJ. YSNYTTAN, OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH.
FULL BNIFB. WIIOLK SNIPE. SN1TE. HEATHER 13LEATER.
Scolopam gallinazo, PENNANT. MONTAGU.
" gallinaria, GMELIN.
Gallinago media, SHAW.
Scolopax—A Woodcock, or Snipe. Gallinago— ?
T H E Snipe, like the trout, is connected with my earliest recollections.
There is no bird which gives you more the idea of a wild-fowl. You
may look at a hundred, one after another, and each will be regarded
with fresh interest, and as if in a new point of view. There is a ' Je
ne scai quoi* in its whole appearance which seems to associate you
with itself, in a love for running brooks and quiet scenes.
The Snipe is very extensively distributed. In Europe, it is found
in considerable numbers, in Germany, Holland, France, Spain, Switzerland,
Hungary, Illyria, and Italy, especially in the Pontine Marshes,
near Rome, where they get up, literally, it is said, in clouds; also in
Russia, Norway, Sweden, Lapland, and Denmark, and as far north as
tin- Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland. In Asia, it has been noticed
in Siberia and Asia Minor; and in Africa, it is said, in Lower Egypt.
The Snipe breeds, and often in considerable numbers, in many parts
of the country; near Penryn, in Cornwall; in Devonshire on Dartmoor;
Dorsetshire; Hampshire, in the New Forest; Cambridgeshire, in Burwell
and Swaffham Fens, and other like parts; and in Norfolk, in
most of the marshy parts of the county. So also in Yorkshire, near
Sheffield, Halifax, on the moors, York, and Doncaster.
I n Scotland, it occurs in Sutherlandshirc, Caithness, etc., etc., etc.,
in plenty ; so too in the Orkneys, Hoy, and all the other islands,
as likewise in the Shetland Isles, but less abundantly; also in the
Hebrides; and in Guernsey and Sark.