Some Haunts of the Snipe. 59 



across a type of country unlike any we have 

 yet traversed. The mud and rushes end 

 abruptly, and give place to a long expanse 

 of undulating open moor, covered with dead 

 heath and grass, and, strange to say, with a 

 vast number of boulders of various shapes 

 and sizes. How they got here is a mystery, 

 for there is no hill composed of similar rock, 

 from which they might have rolled, for at 

 least five miles. More important to us are 

 those shallow square depressions half- filled 

 with water that dot the plain between them 

 on every side. These are the holes made 

 by the peat-cutters, and wherever they occur 

 snipe will be there or thereabouts, usually 

 in the dry dead stuff around them in the 

 daytime, or if very wet, on the sheltered 

 side of the knolls. They lie like the rocks 

 themselves here, goodness knows why, for 

 the ground is more open than any we have 

 walked over to-day, and they afford beautiful 

 shots as they turn their white breasts to 

 the wind, showing them up plainly against 

 the dark monochrome of the herbage be- 



