SNIPE.[110]
Gallinago Wilsoni.
| Scolopax gallinago, | Wils.—Aud. pl. 243. |
| Gallinago Wilsoni, | Bonap. |
[110] Length 10¾ inches, expanse 17, flexure 5¼, tail 2¹⁄₈, rictus 2⁵⁄₁₀, tarsus 1⁴⁄₁₀, middle toe 1⁵⁄₁₀.
From November to April this beautiful and delicious bird is rather common in the morasses of Jamaica. In the fetid swamp that borders Bluefields Creek, I have principally met with it, running on the boggy places, some of which are dangerous and difficult of approach. When the tide comes in, however, the wading birds are driven to the edges of the morass, and may then be seen from the high road at Belmont, walking and feeding deliberately in the shallow water, among the slender stems of the black mangroves, not half a stone’s cast from the passers by. When the water stands just above the tarsal joint, the beak can just reach the bottom: and thus it walks deliberately about, momentarily feeling the mud with the sensitive beak-tip, striking with short perpendicular strokes. Now and then we perceive the motion of swallowing. So absorbed is the bird in its occupation, that I have shouted aloud, without its taking any notice; nor when its eye at last caught the motion of my hand, did it more than run, somewhat leisurely, away.
The present season (1846-7,) seems to be more than usually favourable to the influx of the migrant Grallæ from the north. Mr. Hill mentions, in a recent letter, that a friend, R. Wilkie, Esq., bagged twenty-two brace of Snipe in one day’s shooting, in October.
Other Scolopacidæ that have been observed in Jamaica are the Knit (Tringa Canutus), the Sanderling (Calidris Arenaria), the Willet (Catoptrophorus semipalmatus), and the Little Woodcock (Rusticola minor). These I have not seen, but the first three, Mr. Hill writes me, are plentiful there, this winter. A second species of Woodcock, also, has been reported to have been met with in the island.