Snipe. 2 5 



the breast is whiter than BeHnda's ; the front 

 of the Great Snipe is more dusky, yellowish 

 and brownish, banded with darker browns 

 and blacks. In compensation again, how- 

 ever, the Great Snipe displays in his tail 

 eight white outer feathers, four on each 

 side, which in the Full-Snipe are barred with 

 brown and black, and when he flies takes 

 care to display the justice of Nature by 

 spreading his tail to the utmost, thus appear- 

 ing from behind nearly as white as the Full- 

 Snipe does from before. In the young bird 

 these feathers are much darker, but they 

 have always more white than those of the 

 Full-Snipe. Other means of identification are 

 the silence of the bird as it rises (a Full-Snipe 

 invariably ** ptchakes "), and its comparatively 

 clumsy flight, very different from the arrowy 

 career of the commoner species. The Great 

 Snipe greatly resembles, indeed, an overgrown 

 Jack-Snipe on the wing, and may sometimes 

 share with that little flutterer the safety 

 attributable to the sudden effect of the slow- 

 ness of its flight upon the sportsman's eye 



