1 68 A Book of the Snipe. 



their landing - place would be shrouded in 

 darkness. According to their calculations 

 (there are numberless proofs of their power 

 to divine far distant atmospheric conditions) 

 there should be a moon on the night of their 

 arrival, and they are much disconcerted when 

 they find themselves on a strange shore in 

 pitch darkness. Any one who has had the 

 fortune to fall in with a newly arrived flight 

 of Woodcock near the sea-coast has to thank 

 the invariable darkness of the previous night 

 for his extraordinary sport. Had there been 

 a moon the birds, tired as they were, would 

 probably have dispersed inland instead of re- 

 maining so unnaturally sociable on the first 

 bit of dry land they came to. 



To return to our snipe, the same thing 

 holds good. It must have light of some 

 sort, whether of the moon or of the stars, 

 for both its migration and its feeding. For 

 the latter occupation it prefers quiet, though 

 it is not absolutely necessary. A wild night 

 is an abomination to a snipe. Like all birds 

 it detests at any time being buffeted about, 



