WOODCOCK AND SNIPE 109 



Stranger to hunt over ; he would stand a good 

 chance of being bog-smothered, I was there 

 recently, probing round the edge of it, but I could 

 not get on it, not even on the tussock humps and 

 moss-cushions," for they were floating, and directly 

 you placed your foot on one it would topple over. 



The sun is sinking ; not ^low down yet, but low 

 enough to make that long strip of quaking bog, 

 covered only with mosses, rushes, and cotton grass, 

 look like a glorious carpet, a mile in length, and 

 fifty yards in width at its narrowest part. The 

 flaming marsh-marigolds do not grow here, for this 

 is only bog. The wooded hills on either side are in 

 shadow, but the light falls on that quake and rests 

 there. Up from the mosses springs a Snipe with 

 " t'sick, t'sick, t'sick ! " into the calm, golden-tinted 

 sky of a soft May evening. Up he shoots, but he 

 has altered his tune a bit, ** zoo-ee, zoo-ee, zoo-ee-ee ! " 

 then he stops for a second in his upward flight. 

 Down again he shoots, humming like a top. Then 

 up he shoots again with his " t'sick, t'sick ! " and his 

 " zoo-ee, zoo-ee ! " to shoot down again humming as 

 before, zigzagging all over the place, at least all 

 over that portion of the bog where his mate is sit- 

 ting on her clutch of eggs. Much controversy as to 

 how the sound is produced — I mean the hum — have 

 we seen in papers devoted to natural history, by 

 writers who certainly ought to have known better. 

 But if you tell a certain class of very learned people 

 the simple truth, they get cantankerous, and sling 

 ink in all directions to prove that they know nothing 



