40 A Book of the Snipe. 



a snipe is never so fat as during the first 

 few days of a frost ! Many learned brows 

 have frowned over this anomaly, and many 

 ingenious suggestions been made to account 

 for it. Sir Humphry Davy himself spared 

 time from his task of discovering the ele- 

 ments of Creation to think out the reason 

 why a little bird got fat when it should have 

 got thin, and arguing professor-wise from 

 effect back to causes, judged that it must 

 be because a snipe in a frost only resides 

 by springs which, being too warm to freeze, 

 would have worms in plenty about them at 

 all times ; wherein I believe that the great 

 philosopher was partly right. Gilbert 

 White's of Selborne attribution of the extra 

 flesh of snipe to the ''gentle check which 

 the cold throws upon insensible perspiration " 

 (Letter V.) I believe to be wholly fanciful, 

 though it has been adopted by many natur- 

 alists. Probably the true reason is a habit 

 noticeable in many animals, man included, 

 of gorging to repletion whenever there 

 appears a probability of scarcity of food in 



