94 Common Snipe 



liave been made, or to discuss how the spoils should be treated by 

 the chef ; whether No. 8 or No. 7 is the better sized shot to use, or 

 whether it is wiser to approach a Snipe down or up wind. 



Questions in the highest degree controversial, and of perennial 

 interest in the smoking-room after dinner, but hardly pertaining 

 to my present paper. 



There are, however, just a few points I should like to notice. 

 As October wanes, the Snipe-grounds begin to fill up again, their 

 numbers varying unaccountably from day to day with the temper- 

 ature or wind or other atmospheric changes, for reasons which often 

 enough we are quite unable to appreciate. One day you may obtain 

 five or six couple without much labour, and the following day hardly 

 see one, though you walk all day. 



Snipe are at their best after a little frost. They generally lie 

 better, fly better, and certainly eat better. Prolonged frost, of 

 course, seals up the fens and ditches where they feed. In such 

 circumstances, a good many leave the district and pass on to some 

 less rigorous climate. 



Those that remain congregate about any open water that is 

 left — land springs, sewage-ditches and such-like spots where food is 

 still procurable. If no such feeding-places are available, and if 

 they have not left the country, the\' suffer exceedinglv, often 

 becoming a mere bag of bones, and ultimately perishing miserably 

 unless the frost gives out. 



The Snipe is a most voracious eater, and there is no bird that 

 puts on weight so fast when food is plentiful. 



Conversely, there is no bird that feels the pinch of starvation 

 more, or loses condition faster than a Snipe under opposite conditions. 



This last winter (igo6), after a sharp spell of frost, almost all 

 our Snipe- waters were frozen up ; but there were two short ditches 

 on one marsh, which received the outflow from a small and very 

 elementary sewage-farm higher up and off our ground. The water 

 in these ditches never freezes, partly by reason of its impurity, 

 and partl}^ because it is maintained at a somewhat higher temper- 

 ature. 



The combined length of these two ditches would not exceed 

 150 yards, but all the Snipe in the neighbourhood seem to gather 

 there during a hard frost. 



In open weather, it is a rare event to meet with a single bird 

 in these ditches. 



On the morning of December 27th in the height of the cold 

 weather then prevailing, I walked round these ditches, and in 20 

 minutes or less I bagged four couples. I missed at least as many 

 more, for the banks were thickly bordered on both sides with willows, 

 and the rising Snipe never failed to put a thick trunk between 

 themselves and the gun at the earliest possible moment. 



Besides the missed and the slain, probably another twenty birds 

 rose from the ditch out of shot. 



