24 A Book of the Snipe. 



for bigger quarry, this unassuming and 

 soberly clad head of his clan may escape 

 altogether. 



The Great Snipe, then, is a bird varying 

 from 6^ to lo^ ounces in weight, measuring 

 about 12 inches long from beak-tip to tail-end, 

 and some 1 8 inches from tip to tip of its ex- 

 panded wings. Its form and colour may be 

 best described for the sportsman's purposes 

 by their differences from those of the Common 

 Snipe. Generally speaking, besides being 

 larger it has a more burly appearance than 

 its smaller congener : its legs are shorter in 

 comparison to its body ; its beak is shorter 

 (2^ inches); the Full-Snipe had better fortune 

 at the Promontory of Noses,^ no small matter 

 for birds who get their living by boring in 

 the mud ; its tail is a trifle squarer, and 

 redresses the Nosarian balance by boasting 

 sixteen feathers as against fourteen flirted 

 by the Full-Snipe. In colour, too, there is a 

 distinguishable, though in young birds some- 

 what indistinct, difference. In the Full-Snipe 



1 The Tale of Slawkenbergius in ' Tristram Shandy.' 



