Life histories of North American shore birds, Part 1 (of 2)Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American shore birds, Part 1 (of 2)
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- Behavior; Shore birds -- North America
Not more than two hundred yards from the wood, a ridge sank and
allowed the surplus water from one flattened area of grassy marsh
to drain through to the next. On the north side of the trickle the
ground rose slowly to the full height of the ridge again, perhaps a
yard above the marsh-level. Midway up the little slope, on a dry
bit of ground, a few stalks of scrub-birch partially shielded the
jack snipe from view as it sat on the nest by the side of a
cloudberry plant. Not that shelter was needed. The nest would never
have been found had my foot not happened to drop within a few
inches of it. Then away the bird flew, with a low, almost direct
flight, without any sudden twists for some twenty yards, then down
into the marsh. When flushed it disappeared from view into the
marsh and was not seen again until within a few feet of the nest.
Once, when spotted a couple of yards away, it covered that short
distance a foot at a time, crouching down for a few seconds between
each very short journey; then, still crouching, it covered the eggs
and remained motionless.
The nest was found on June 12th, 1926, and it then contained four
eggs. The last time I inspected it was on July 6th, when the eggs
were cracking at their larger ends.
_Eggs._--The eggs are extraordinarily large for the size of the bird,
being but little smaller than those of the common snipe (_Capella
gallinago_). They are, as a rule, more or less distinctly pyriform and
are normally four in number. The ordinary types vary in ground color
from "chamois" to "cream buff" in the buff types and "olive-lake" or
"corn-olive" to "olive-buff" in the green types. As a rule, the markings
are somewhat smaller and more uniformly distributed than in common
snipes' eggs. They are in some shade of light or dark brown, such as
"tawny," "russet-vinaceous," "chocolate," "liver," or "chestnut brown";
the underlying markings, which are numerous and conspicuous in some
cases, are in various shades of "purple drab" or "drab-grey." The spiral
smears, so frequently found in common snipes' eggs, seem to be absent
from those of the jack snipe, and, though there are some cases of wide
variation in coloring, a series will be found to be browner and less
bold in markings than a corresponding number of the common species. The
measurements of 146 eggs average 38.53 by 27.37 millimeters; the eggs
showing the four extremes measure =44.5= by 28.5, 40 by =30=, =35= by 27
and 38 by =25.5= millimeters. Rey (1905) states that the shells are
somewhat thinner and lighter than with the common snipe and gives the
average weight as 660 grams.
_Plumages._--The downy plumage is described by Dresser (1871) as
follows, from a nestling obtained at Muonioniska:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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