CAPELLA MEDIA (Latham)
GREAT SNIPE
Contributed by Francis Charles Robert Jourdain
HABITS
The claim of this species to a place on the American list rests on a specimen obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada many years ago and now in the collection of the British Museum. Its breeding home is in Northern Europe and Asia, but on migration and during the winter months it has been met with in the British Isles, throughout southern Europe and Africa south to the Cape Province, as well as southern Asia from India westward. Unlike the common snipe, it frequently occurs singly and is by no means confined to marshy spots, but may be met with on rough pastures, moorlands, and fields. To this characteristic it owes its name of "solitary snipe."
Spring.—On the northward migration it is of very rare occurrence in the British Isles, and has only been recorded on a few occasions in Morocco, but of regular occurrence in south Spain; but is not uncommon on passage in Malta in April and May and occurs in small numbers in Italy in April and May and in Corfu and Epirus in March, also migrating in greater numbers along the west coast of the Black Sea. Probably the majority of the birds which visit South Africa make their way northward along the east side of the Continent. The northerly movement begins in Natal in January or February, so that it extends over a period of four or five months.
Courtship.—Observations on the courtship of this species are not numerous, for it is nocturnal in its habits and, except during the mating season, decidedly unsociable. In western Europe there has been a great diminution of the breeding stock of late years. Jutland, which was at one time a well-known breeding place, has long been entirely deserted, and it is necessary to visit the morasses of Scandinavia and Esthonia or Finland and Russia before one can make the acquaintance of this species in any numbers on its nesting ground. Unlike the common and jack snipe, there are no aerial evolutions to call attention to the display, but the whole is conducted on the ground between sunset and sunrise; and as the notes of the birds are not loud, it may well be imagined that it may readily be overlooked. The number of birds which attend at the "Spil," as it is called in Norway, or "Tok" (Russian), varies from eight to a dozen pairs to twenty or more in districts where the birds are comparatively common. Here late in May the males may be heard uttering low warbling notes, producing also sounds which have been compared to those made by running the nail along the teeth of a comb, and snapping their bills together, evidently in defiance. The display consists in expanding the tail like a fan and turning it over toward the back, the white outer feathers standing out conspicuously, with drooping wings and depressed and retracted head. In this attitude they perform a kind of dance, slowly at first, but becoming more and more rapid, and generally culminating in a series of fights between the rivals.
R. Collett, who furnished a long and detailed description of the procedure at one of these "leks" to Dresser (1871), is of opinion that the fighting is not of a serious character and consists chiefly of feeble slashes with the wings, but the Russian naturalist Alphéraky, a translation of whose interesting paper on the subject appeared in the Field for 1906 (p. 1075) with an illustration of the display, describes the ground as often strewn with feathers after these encounters. In the more northern latitudes there is of course little darkness, but there is a consensus of opinion that the display dies down about midnight and commences again as it becomes lighter. Alphéraky ascribes this to the arrival of the females on the scene. Clear and bright nights are most favorable for this performance, which seems to have some points of resemblance to that of the ruff and some to that of the black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix), but a series of observations are required before we can reconcile the discrepancies and fill up the gaps in the descriptions. According to Collett there is a period in the display when the bird is in a kind of ecstasy and produces a series of varied notes beginning with a whistle or two, followed by a snapping noise with five or six notes in rapid succession, then a hissing sound, followed by a rolling sbirrrr, which becomes deeper as uttered. A number of birds displaying at the same time produces a low continuous chorus of varied sounds. This is the more remarkable as the great snipe is at other seasons a particularly silent bird, and indeed is rarely heard to utter a sound of any kind, usually rising in silence.
Nesting.—The sites vary according to locality. In Jutland they were usually on grassy flats, but in Scandinavia generally on broken ground with birch scrub here and there. Here the female scratches a hollow among the moss and deposits her four handsome eggs. F. and P. Godman (1861), who found several nests in the Bodö district, Norway, discovered one which had an incomplete set of two eggs. On returning two days later to the spot nothing was visible but some disarranged bits of moss. Alarmed by their approach the bird flew off, leaving a hole in the moss through which the eggs were visible. On a third visit the bird was found incubating the two eggs, which were on the point of hatching, and was covered with fragments of moss which she had evidently torn up and thrown over herself. None of the other nests found were concealed in any way.
Eggs.—These are normally four in number, though occasionally three may be met with. They are pyriform in shape with a pale stone colored ground and boldly spotted and blotched with dark umber, shading into black and numerous ashy gray shell markings. The markings are usually denser and more concentrated at the big end, often with a tendency to a zone. The measurements of 100 eggs from northern Europe (69 by the writer, 19 by Goebel, and 12 by Rey) average 45.3 by 31.8 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 48.8 by 31.9, 46.2 by 33.3, 41.2 by 31.7, and 46.5 by 29.5 millimeters. Rey (1905) gives the average weight as 1.107 g. and Goebel as 1.035 g.
Young.—As to the share of the sexes in incubation our information is scanty; but, such as it is, goes to prove that it is conducted by the female alone. Naumann (1887) gives the period as 17 to 18 days and states that as soon as the young are dried they leave the nest and take to the long grass which effectually conceals them.