298 BRITISH BIRDS 



woodcock had the habit of removing its young, one at a time, when 

 in danger by flying away with them. But it was said that the 

 young bird was carried in the bill of its parent, and ornithologists 

 declined to believe it, because, as Gilbert White remarked, the long, 

 imwieldy beak of the woodcock was unfitted for such a task. The 

 matter remained in doubt until about twenty years ago ; and it is 

 now known that the bird carries her young with her feet, either 

 grasping them in her claws or holding them pressed between her 

 thighs. According to some observers, the bird uses her bill to keep 

 her young one pressed firmly against her thighs when flying with it. 



Great Snipe. 

 Gallinago major. 



Crown black, divided lengthways by a yellowish white band ; a 

 streak of the same colour over the eye ; upper parts mottled with 

 black and chestnut-brown ; greater wing-coverts tipped with white ; 

 imder parts whitish, spotted and barred with black. Length, twelve 

 inches. 



The great, or solitary snipe, sometimes called the double snipe, 

 resembles the common snipe in form and colouring, and in size is 

 intermediate between that species and the woodcock. This species, 

 described in the B.O.U. official list as a ' straggler,' hardly comes 

 within the scope of the present work. But although a straggler, it 

 comes regularly, appearing in the eastern and southern counties 

 from the middle of August to the middle of October. These visitors 

 are young birds, and few in number, and as they do not revisit us in 

 spring, it may be assumed that they perish in their winter wander- 

 ings—the usual fate of stragglers from the migrating route of the 

 species, or race. The fact that young birds in very many cases 

 migrate in advance of the adults, that they keep to the same lines, 

 and often journey vast distances, clearly shows that migration is 

 performed instinctively. We may call the principle of action in 

 this case crystallised experience, or inherited or historical know- 

 ledge, or lapsed intelligence, or by any other pretty name ; but it 

 is not ordinary intelligence — the guiding faculty that observes, con- 

 siders, and profits by experience. And it is possible to believe that 

 the young of the great snipe, when visiting Great Britain in the 

 autumn, are going back to an ancient route abandoned by the species, 



