COMMON SiNlPE 77 



southern districts, and will likewise delay their final departure 

 in the spring. 



Although not actually flocking, as so many waders do, 

 they are sociable to the extent that several may generally be 

 found in one locality, and in the arrival and departure of the 

 general body taking place simultaneously. Their chosen ground, 

 as most people know, is swamp or marsh, wherever mud and 

 low grassy cover is available ; paddy-fields naturally appeal to 

 them particularly. They resort to such places for food, which 

 consists mostly, in the case of this species of snipe, of earth- 

 worms, although other small forms of animal life are also taken. 

 The food has to be found by feeling, and the way in which 

 a snipe's bill, by its flexibility, will open at the tip, the end only 

 of the upper jaw being raised to nip the worm, is a wonderful 

 adaptation to this mode of feeding, as is also the " overshot " 

 structure, the upper bill ending in a sort of knob, back of which 

 the lower fits at the tip, so as to penetrate with as little resist- 

 ance as possible. This structure is seen more or less in all 

 true snipe, and is generally a good distinction from the various 

 sandpipers, whose bills are usually less adapted for experimental 

 boring. 



AVhen they are not feeding, snipe like to be out of water, 

 so during the heat of the day they are to be found on the 

 nearest dry spot back of the mud on land, or even on water- 

 weeds well out in a jheel. Being only small birds, also, they 

 have no use for places where the water is more than an inch or 

 so deep — too much water is just as bad as none at all from their 

 point of view. Colonel Tickell sums up the situation by saying : 

 " It is not easy to describe the ground this bird selects. In 

 paddy fields, I found, where the stubble showed the mud 

 freely — that is, was not too thick — and w^iere puddles of water 

 were interspersed, fringed with short, half-dry, curling grass 

 and small weeds, there the snipe were sure to be if in the 

 country ; and note, if these puddles were coated over with a 

 film of iridescent oily matter (the washings of an iron soil) the 

 chances were greatly increased of a find." 



The ground on which that celebrated snipe-shot, Mr. W. K. 

 Dods, of Calcutta, made his record bag of 131 couple — 259 of 



