28 A Book of the Snipe. 



good man had been stuffing secretly with 

 bank-notes for forty years ! There may be 

 a Great Snipe on your stick any day. A 

 friend of mine once rescued one from a 

 bundle of snipe exposed for sale in a 

 poulterer's shop, and possibly many a speci- 

 men which might have adorned a smoking- 

 room or the local museum has lain with 

 the profanum vulgus upon the common bier 

 of toast on the dinner-table. 



The Common or Full-Snipe weighs from 

 3}^ to 6 ounces, the usual weight of a healthy 

 bird being about Afi/^ ounces ; the usual length 

 about lo^ inches, and the width across the 

 wings about i6 inches; length of beak 2^ 

 to 3 inches. It is one of the commonest 

 birds in the world. Did not civilisation clash 

 with its habits and destroy its habitat it 

 would probably be the commonest of all 

 birds. There is no country in which it does 

 not either breed or to which it does not 

 resort on migration. As the fisherman on 

 travel bent will never do wrong to carry 

 with him a spinning-rod, a Nottingham reel, 



