SNIPE 253 



uses in order to prevent its discovery. If, at the 

 first footfall of the intruder, the Snipe sprang as 

 though casually, from her eggs, and went straight 

 away : better still, if she remained perfectly quies- 

 cent in the sheltering heath until the danger had 

 gone by, all would be well. But she waits until the 

 foe is upon her and then runs from the nest with 

 trailing wings or flies a few yards only to drop 

 struggling to the earth as though mortally wounded. 

 It is a marvellous piece of deception, but, alas, to 

 the prying bird-watcher, it tells the whole story — 



" Methinks the lady doth protest too much " — 



and straightway he examines every nook and recess 

 in the heather until the three or four sharply- 

 pointed, brown mottled eggs, unduly large in rela- 

 tion to the size of the bird, rest before his eyes. 



The young, curious little balls of fluff, are able to 

 run almost as soon as hatched, and they hide them- 

 selves in the heather until their wings are grown. 

 It is chiefly during the period of incubation that the 

 parent Snipe develops the singular habit from 

 which its many local names — heather-bleater, moor- 

 lamb, air-goat, and so on — are derived, and which 

 has given rise to grave disputes amongst natural- 

 ists. On a still evening in early summer one may 

 hear, high in the air, a vibrant "humming" or 

 *' bleating " sound, and a flying Snipe is seen sud- 

 denly to turn and to dash himself down almost per- 

 pendicularly for many yards, and it is as he 

 descends that the sound is emitted. For long it was 

 believed to be a cry, but as far back as 1858 a 

 Swedish ornithologist wrote an elaborate treatise to 



