84 Common Snipe 



" part, was ostentatiously indifferent as tliey strutted up and down 

 " before her with drooping wings and outspread tails. This 

 " continued for perhaps half a minute ; and then the lady, becoming 

 " bored, I suppose, with their advances, rose and flew another 80 

 " yards into the Fen, hotly pursued by both the males, and all three 

 " dropped into some rushy cover, where I could no longer see them." 



Fear had no part in the actions of these birds ; they settled 

 within a few yards of me on the bare open ground, so that I could 

 almost knock them over with the walking stick I had in my hand : 

 and for half-a-minute they paid no more attention to me than if 

 I had been a gate-post. When at last they did fly off, it was still 

 clear that fear was not the exciting cause, for they dropped again 

 on the marsh not more than a couple of gun shots away. 



To return, however, to our expedition on the Snipe marsh. 

 Most of the birds we have seen or heard so far are undoubtedly 

 males. For an hour or so after sunrise, the females would have left 

 their nests for a few short aerial flights, but now they are all down 

 on their eggs or tending their downy chicks. 



Extend your walk a little further, and you pass from the marsh 

 meadows, which are standing for hay, on to some rougher marshes 

 covered with a thick crop of rushes. It is here you will find the nest 

 or the nestlings. 



The nest is of the simplest construction, rather more elaborate 

 than that of the Lapwing, and that is about as much as can be said of it. 



A shallow depression scraped in the ground, often placed in 

 the cut stumps of a clump of rushes that was mown the previous 

 autumn, and sparsely lined with a few blades of dead grass or other 

 coarse vegetation that lies near at hand. That is a description that 

 applies fairly well to the majority of nests. Approaching it from 

 one or other side, you will almost always find a narrow, beaten track 

 or run, tM'o or three yards in length, by which the female approaches 

 the nest. She never drops directly on to her eggs, nor ever flies 

 directly off them, even when sitting hard, if she has any warning of 

 an approaching danger. She alights on the ground six feet or more 

 away, and steals up to the nest by this narrow track, and, conversely, 

 when leaving, she quietly sneaks down this pathway before she 

 takes wing. She alwa^'S appears to follow the same course, day after 

 day, going or coming, and the result of these constant journeyings 

 is to wear a distinct track which is always plainly visible to anyone 

 who troubles to look for it, before incubation has proceeded very 



long- 



I have seen, on occasions. Snipe nests placed in tlie middle of 



a growing clump of rushes and very artfully concealed — the nest 

 completely hidden from view, with an entrance at one side, over 

 which the rushes form a natural curtain which the bird adjusts each 

 time she approaches or leaves the nest. Nests of this kind are often 

 made, or, perhaps, I should say, such sites are chosen, by the Red- 

 shank, but they are exceptional with Snipe. 



