Habits and Habitat of Snipe. 187 



boring birds to accept notice to quit, cer- 

 tainly more so than the Woodcock, which 

 often struggles on through the hardest frosts 

 for a time, picking up a precarious and un- 

 accustomed living from the frozen surface of 

 the earth — a thing a snipe has never been 

 known to do. This is all the more strano^e 

 by reason of the fact that the Woodcock is 

 actually more susceptible to the temperature 

 of the air itself, apart from the condition of 

 the ground, than its smaller relative. Thus I 

 have twice picked up an unwounded Wood- 

 cock, fairly numbed and immovable from the 

 intense cold, on the very margin of a spring, 

 from which one or two snipe have darted 

 away with their usual activity, apparently 

 revelling in the keen still air so long as 

 their larder was not closed to them. 



Another cause which will occasionally greatly 

 reduce the number of snipe in a district is the 

 occurrence of floods, but this not to anything 

 like the extent that a frost will do. As a 

 rule, rather than forsake a favourite marsh, 

 the birds will crowd together on the scattered 



