194 ^ Book of the Snipe. 



In many places where good feeding-ground 

 is at a distance from good resting-places there 

 is a regular flight of snipe at nightfall in any 

 weather. In some parts of Ireland it is, or 

 was, a common poaching trick to sit up round 

 small springs visited in this manner, and to 

 wait until sufficient birds have collected to 

 make a shot in the dark tolerably certain of 

 success. Even in their nightly flight to the 

 same small patch of wet ground, snipe maintain 

 their solitary nature by arriving not in a body, 

 but in ones and twos. The suddenness with 

 which they will drop from the gloom above to 

 the chosen place is positively startling to the 

 waiting human being. Sir Ralph Payne- 

 Gallwey says that he has always heard their 

 cry in the air before actually seeing them 

 descend ; but my experience is that this 

 usually means they have detected your pres- 

 ence, and in that case do not descend at all. 

 Anyhow, once on the ground, they are as 

 silent as the grave, and even in the brightest 

 moonlight it is nearly hopeless to attempt 

 to make them out as they feed. 



