Taxonomic History
Described by Ord in 1825, Wilson’s Snipe (Gallinago delicata) enjoyed the status of a full species through the 4th edition of the AOU Check-list (1931). Then, with the publication of the 20th supplement to its Checklist of North American Birds, the AOU (1945) decided to treat it as conspecific with the Common Snipe (G. gallinago) of the Old World. The reference cited for this change was the treatment in Witherby et al. (1940). In lumping these two taxa, Witherby et al. (1940) relied on the comments made by Meinertzhagen (1924) at a meeting of the British Ornithologists’ Club. Meinertzhagen pointed out that except for the width of the outer tail feathers all of the visual characters known at the time overlapped. Flight-display sounds were not analyzed. Gallinago delicata was not the only species lumped within G. gallinago.