42 A Book of the Snipe. 



birds you may spring from them early in 

 a frost, for snipe are voracious feeders. 

 Then when the springs are wormless and 

 the frost continues, the snipe fly to warmer 

 pastures (often not far in this climatic patch- 

 work of ours) if they have retained strength 

 for flight ; if not, they perish. In a long 

 frost you may shoot birds so weak as to be 

 scarcely able to fly, and so thin as to be 

 utterly useless for the table, if you are un- 

 sportsmanlike enough to do so. This is not, 

 however, a common occurrence in these 

 islands, for our frosts are usually as brief 

 as our spells of warm weather, and even 

 when they occur the snipe are not often 

 caught napping. On the subject of frosts 

 more will be said later. 



Two varieties of the Common Snipe have 

 been obtained in Great Britain, a black and 

 white. Whilst both are exceedingly rare, 

 the former has occurred sufficiently commonly 

 to have received from naturalists, who for 

 long regarded it as a distinct species, the 

 specific designation of Sabine's Snipe. Curi- 



