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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Footnote 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 Should have a hook and a small trout to pull it.” Footnote 2: The Friend, page 303, by S. T. Coleridge. Footnote 3: I have known a person who fished with him at Merton, in the Wandle. I hope this circumstance will be mentioned in the next edition of that most exquisite and touching Life of our Hero, by the Laureate, an immortal monument raised by Genius to Valour. Footnote 4: