The author, in supposing that the par may be produced from a cross between the river trout and the sea trout, does not mean to attach any importance to this idea. The fish differs so little from the common trout, that it may be questioned, whether it is not more entitled to the character of a variety than of a species. In many rivers on the continent, the author has seen small trout with olive or brown marks, like those of the British par; and a friend informs him, that he has caught fish of the same kind in the streams connected with the Lake of Geneva. In rivers, flowing into the Danube, these small fish are very common; but, as well as he remembers, their marks are pale, or yellowish-brown, or olive, and not dark or blue like those of our par. The salmon does not belong to any of these localities, but the hucho haunts the tributary streams of the Danube. The smelts, or young of the salmo hucho, and sea trout, and lake trout, are all distinguished by the uniform dark colour of the back, and the silvery whiteness of the belly. He does not remember to have seen any of the streaked, or par varieties of trout in rivers, in which there was only one species, or variety of large salmo. The mottled colour of the skin is, he thinks, the strongest argument in favour of this little fish, being from a cross of two varieties, or races, which may be the case, and yet the fish be capable of breeding, and gaining this character of a peculiar variety; and he supposes different kinds of pars may be produced by crosses of the sea trout, the hucho, the lake trout, with the river trouts, or perhaps of the salmon, and this would account for their great numbers, and the various tints of the marks on their sides. If the hucho, as he believes, generally spawns late in the winter, it may sometimes meet with trout spawning at the same time. He has seen salmon and trout in the Tweed in a similar state of maturity at the same period; and, in 1816, he remembers, that he took large female salmon, that had the period of parturition protracted as late as March.
(On the scolaphax, page [124].)
I shall say a few words on the congeners of this bird (the solitary snipe,) and on the three varieties so much better known in Europe. The woodcock feeds indiscriminately upon earthworms, small beetles, and various kinds of larvæ, and its stomach sometimes contains seeds, which I suspect have been taken up in boring amongst the excrements of cattle; yet the stomach of this bird has something of the gizzard character, though not so much as that of the land-rail, which I have found half filled with seeds of grasses, and even containing corn, mixed with may-bugs, earth-worms, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. The woodcock, I believe, breeds habitually only in high northern latitudes, yet there are woods in England, particularly one in Sussex, near the borders of Hampshire, in which one or two couple of these birds, it is said, may always be found in summer. I suspect these woodcocks are from the offspring of birds which had paired for their passage, but being detained by an accident happening to one of them, staid and raised a young brood in England, and the young ones probably had their instincts altered by the accidents of their being born in England, and being in a place well supplied with food. It is not improbable, that they likewise raised young ones, and that the habit of staying has become hereditary. There can be no doubt, that woodcocks are very constant to their local attachments; woodcocks, that have been preserved in a particular wood for a winter, always return to it, if possible, the next season. Many woodcocks breed in Norway and Sweden in the great, extensive, and moist pine woods, filled with bogs and morasses, which cover these wild countries, but probably a still greater number breed further north, in Lapland, Finland, Russia, and Siberia. It is I believe a fable, that they ever raise their young habitually in the high Alpine or mountainous countries of the central or southern parts of Europe. These countries indeed in summer are very little fitted for their feeding; they cannot bore where it is either dry or frosty, and the glacier, as well as the arid sand or rock, are equally unfitted for their haunts. They leave the north with the first frost, and travel slowly south till they come to their accustomed winter quarters; they do not usually make a quick voyage, but fly from wood to wood, reposing and feeding on their journey: they prefer for their haunts, woods near marshes or morasses; they hide themselves under thick bushes in the day, and fly abroad to feed in the dusk of the evening. A laurel, or a holly-bush, is a favourite place for their repose: the thick and varnished leaves of these trees prevents the radiation of heat from the soil, and they are less affected by the refrigerating influence of a clear sky, so that they afford a warm seat for the woodcock. Woodcocks usually begin to fly north on the first approach of spring, and their flights are generally longer, and their rests fewer, at this season than in the autumn.
In the autumn they are driven from the north to the south by the want of food, and they stop wherever they can find food. In the spring, there is the influence of another powerful instinct added to this, the sexual feeling. They migrate in pairs, and pass as speedily as possible to the place where they are likely to find food, and to raise their young, and of which the old birds have already had the experience of former years. Scarcely any woodcocks winter in any part of Germany. In France there are a few found, particularly in the southern provinces, and in Normandy and Brittany. The woods of England, especially of the west and south, contain always a certain quantity of woodcocks, but there are far more in the moist soil and warmer climate of Ireland; but in the woods of southern Italy and Greece, near marshes, they are far more abundant; and they extend in quantities over the Greek Islands, Asia Minor, and northern Africa.
The snipe is one of the most generally distributed birds belonging to Europe. It feeds upon almost every kind of worm, or larvæ, and, as I have said before, its stomach sometimes contains seeds and rice; it prefers a country cold in the summer to breed in; but wherever there is much fluid water, and great morasses, this bird is almost certain to be found. Its nest is very inartificial, its eggs large, and the young ones soon become of an enormous size, being, often before they can fly, larger than their parents. Two young ones are usually the number in a nest, but I have seen three. The old birds are exceedingly attached to their offspring, and if any one approach near the nest they make a loud and drumming noise above the head, as if to divert the attention of the intruder. A few snipes always breed in the marshes of England and Scotland, but a far greater number retire for this purpose to the Hebrides and the Orkneys. In the heather surrounding a small lake in the Island of Hoy, in the Orkneys, I found in the month of August, in 1817, the nests of ten or twelve couple of snipes. I was grouse-shooting, and my dog continually pointed them, and, as there were sometimes three young ones and two old ones in the nest, the scent was very powerful. From accident of the season these snipes were very late in being hatched, for they usually fly before the middle of July; but this year, even as late as the 15th of August, there were many young snipes that had not yet their wing feathers. Snipes are usually fattest in frosty weather, which, I believe, is owing to this, that in such weather they haunt only warm springs, where worms are abundant, and they do not willingly quit these places, so that they have plenty of nourishment and rest, both circumstances favourable to fat. In wet, open weather they are often obliged to make long flights, and their food is more distributed. The jack-snipe feeds upon smaller insects than the snipe: small white larvæ, such as are found in black bogs, are its favourite food, but I have generally found seeds in its stomach, once hemp-seeds, and always gravel. I know not where the jack-snipe breeds, but I suspect far north. I never saw their nest or young ones in Germany, France, Hungary, Illyria, or the British Islands. The common snipe breeds in great quantities in the extensive marshes of Hungary and Illyria; but I do not think the jack-snipe breeds there, for, even in July and August, with the first very dry weather, many snipes, with ducks and teal, come into the marshes in the south of Illyria, but the jack-snipe is always later in its passage, later even than the double-snipe, or the woodcock. In 1828, in the drains about Laybach, in Illyria, common snipes were seen in the middle of July. The first double snipes appeared the first week in September, when likewise woodcocks were seen; the first jack-snipe did not appear till three weeks later than the 29th of September. I was informed at Copenhagen, that the jack-snipe certainly breeds in Zealand, and I saw a nest with its eggs, said to be from the island of Sandholm, opposite Copenhagen, and I have no doubt that this bird and the double-snipe sometimes make their nests in the marshes of Holstein and Hanover. An excellent sportsman and good observer informs me, that, in the great royal decoy, or marsh-preserve, near Hanover, he has had ocular proofs of double-snipes being raised from the nest there; but these birds require solitude and perfect quiet, and, as their food is peculiar, they demand a great extent of marshy meadow. Their stomach is the thinnest amongst birds of the scolopax tribe, and, as I have said before, their food seems to be entirely the larvæ of the tibulæ, or congenerous flies.
[1]. From Don Juan, Canto XII. Stanza CVI.
“And Angling, too, that solitary vice,
Whatever Isaac Walton sings or says:
The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet