The Birds of Alexander Wilson-Wilson's Snipe (Gallinago delicata)

Abstract

Alexander Wilson lists no less than six species of snipe in American Ornithology. Was he splitting one species into a swarm? Not at all. He assigned the name snipe to a number of long-billed shorebirds, for example the Red-breasted Snipe and the Yellow-shanks Snipe. Wilson was actually rather conservative in his classification of the snipe which he considered conspecific with the European species and described under the name English Snipe. He recognized some important differences but did not consider these sufficient to warrant species status. Recall that species had not been objectively defined in 1812 when he wrote of snipe. George Ord considered the snipe described by Wilson to be specifically distinct from the Snipe of Europe. Lucien Bonaparte agreed and incorporated Ord’s comments in an expanded revision of American Ornithology published in 1825. They christened the new species Wilson’s Snipe. In 1945, the American Ornithologists’ Union Checklist Committee decided that Wilson’s Snipe was indeed conspecific with the European Snipe. Later, in 2002, the committee reconsidered the previous decision and elevated Wilson’s Snipe to species status based on morphological and behavioral differences originally described by Wilson. And that is the checkered taxonomic history of Wilson’s Snipe. By the way, do you recognize the other species of snipe described by Wilson and what of the Semipalmated Snipe?