38 A Book of the Snipe. 



ranks of migrating birds. If scientists may be 

 believed, the thousands that reach us are 

 but survivors of tens and hundreds of thou- 

 sands which the tempest, the sea, fog, fatigue, 

 and predatory enemies have struck down on 

 the way until the track of migration is marked 

 by a line of corpses. 



The food of the snipe, though in captivity 

 it has been known to swallow raw flesh, con- 

 sists of worms, caterpillars, and small snails. 

 These it obtains by boring deeply in the mud 

 with its long bill, so deeply that you will 

 sometimes observe the forehead and even the 

 eyes of birds you may shoot to be caked with 

 dry mud. There is no doubt that a snipe 

 becomes aware of the presence of a worm or 

 other edible below the surface of the ground 

 chiefly by the sense of hearing, and that he 

 locates it more exactly by feeling. I have 

 often watched snipe at dinner, and have ob- 

 served that, though they make many fruitless 

 borings in their search for food, only one in 

 about half-a-dozen efforts being rewarded with 

 a worm, the successful " drill " was invariably 



