Common Snipe 89 



remarkab!\- far hack in the cranium as compared with other birds. 

 It is this position of the c\es, more than anything else, which gives 

 the Woodcock his strikingly peculiar appearance. 



The large round eyes are set at the back and upper corner of 

 the head, directly above the ears, instead of in front of them, as in 

 most birds. \\'here is the gain in such an arrangement ? 



^^'atch a bird feeding and you will see. The bill is driven into 

 the soft mud, and buried right up to the frontal feathers. If the 

 eyes were placed in the position in which they are found in 

 the majority of the class, they would stand the risk of being buried 

 too ; at any rate, they would cease to be of efficient use for the 

 purposes of sight. 



A Snipe, with its eyes placed as they are, can get the very last 

 fraction out of its bill, as it struggles for a worm half-an-inch further 

 down in the mud, and yet see all that is going on round it, and be 

 ready for anv emergencv that the fates mav have in store. 



The Snipe, except in the breeding season, is a very shy bird, 

 and feeds mostly at night ; it is not often, therefore, that one has 

 an opportunity of observing one so engaged. 



This, I hope, may be sufficient excuse for the following note on 

 a Snipe I watched in the early autumn of 1892. 



I had gone down to the Thorpe Mere before da}light, mainly 

 with the object of securing some specimens of the Wood Sandpiper, 

 which were numerous at the time, but very wild. 



I met my gunner, whom I shall call A, at his fishing hut on the 

 beach, and after consultation, we decided to try " driving " the 

 Sandpipers as soon as there was enough light to shoot by. He was 

 to flush the birds from the marsh, which we knew they habitually 

 " used," while I was to lie up in some rushes near a muddy splash, 

 for which the birds generally made when disturbed. " A " had a 

 longish tramp round to outflank the Sandpipers, and I reached my 

 position long before he was ready to begin the driv-e, so I proceeded 

 to lie down in some thick rushes which aft'orded excellent cover, and 

 were within easy shot of the splash. 



Before I had been there long, I heard a sudden whizz in the 

 air, and a Snipe dropped down on to the mud within eight or ten 

 yards of me. 



Entirely unconscious of my proximity, he started feeding 

 unconcernedh' at the edge of the water. His movements were 

 slow and stately as he methodically probed the mud with his long 

 bill, in marked contrast to the nervous, jerky style of the feeding 

 Sandpiper. Sometimes he would bur\- the bill onh' half its length, 

 at others plunge it into the ooze right up to the frontal feathers, the 

 bill slanting slightly away from him, so that it made an angle of 

 75" or 80° with the ground. 



Now and again he would withdraw the bill quickly, when, I 

 supposed, he had found nothing. On other occasions, he would 

 thrust the bill well into the mud, and hold it motionless for a second 



