Plumages.—The reader is referred to A Practical Handbook of British Birds, edited by H. F. Witherby (1920), where a complete account of the plumages and molts of this species is given.
Food.—Naumann (1887) records small worms, insect larvae, small snails, coleoptera, water insects, and larvae of Phryganeidae. Yarrell (1871) includes larvae of insects, especially Tipulidae, and small slugs as well as worms. These last seem to form the staple diet.
Behavior.—The family parties soon break up and from late autumn to its arrival on the breeding grounds it is more likely to be met with singly than in company. Its flight is not so rapid as that of the common snipe, but slower and more direct, while instead of uttering the well known scape, it either rises in silence or merely utters a guttural croaking note.
Fall.—More frequently met with in the British Isles on the autumn migration from the end of July to mid-November than in spring, but probably frequently overlooked. By the beginning of August the young are full grown normally, and gradually make their way from the high north in Norway southward, the majority of migrants taking an easterly course and only a small proportion moving south-westward to the winter quarters.
DISTRIBUTION
Breeding range.—Norway, north to Tromsö, Sweden, to latitude 65° N., formerly in Denmark but now extinct, as also in Schleswig. It is said to have bred formerly in Holland and still does so in East Prussia and eastward to Estonia, Finland, Russia, according to Buturlin, up to latitude 63° near the Great Lakes, 65½° on the White Sea, and 67½° in the Petchora, while southward it is said to breed in Bessarabia (Rumania) and in the Governments of Kieff, Poltava, Kharkoff, and Voronsh, and to 51½° N. in the Urals as well as in the Caucasus. In Asia it breeds near Omsk, in the Altai and the tributaries of the Ob, but not beyond the Yenesei or in East Siberia.
Winter range.—Cape Province, Natal, Transvaal (September to March), Damara Land, Bechuana Land, Portuguese East Africa, Southwest Africa, Persia, Turkestan, and India (once).
Migration.—River Zambesi, Egypt (not uncommon), Alexandria, etc., Algeria, Greece (April 23, May 7), Cyprus, Corfu (March), Malta (March 30), Naples, Corsica (March 25), Valencia (October 9), Montenegro (April 15, 24), Asia Minor (May 9, Sept. 21), Fao, Persian Gulf, Iraq (April, Aug., Sept.).
Egg dates.—Formerly in Denmark from May 6 to June 8 (12 records), occasionally in July; in Scandinavia from end of May to middle of July (10 records, June 13 to July 15).