26 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
black or gray, longitudinally striped with white, whitish 
and cream color and tawny, it is extremely difficult to 
see on the ground. Once, in Montana, riding near a 
little mud flat, dotted with tussocks of yellow grass, I 
saw at a little distance a snipe feeding in the mud. 
For some reason he had not noticed me until I got 
quite close to him. Then he stopped, looked for a 
moment, and took two deliberate steps which brought 
him between me and a yellow tussock, the yellow of 
which was, of course, constantly interrupted by shad- 
ows of darker—the spaces between the blades of 
grass. Without taking my eye off him I looked at 
the tussock, and after I had adjusted my field glasses, 
could make out a snipe standing there in plain sight, 
but invisible because of his background. After a mo- 
ment or two the bird seemed to think that it had 
been needlessly alarmed, and moved out again against 
a dark background, where it was plainly seen; but 
when I started my horse forward, it again became 
alarmed and retreated to its position of shelter, which 
again was in front of, and not behind, the tussock. It 
seemed to understand that this background would ab- 
solutely conceal it. This is, of course, only one of the 
common devices of wild animals to escape the obser- 
vation of their enemies. 
The snipe is not likely to be taken for any other one 
of our game birds, though the dowitcher, or brown- 
back, one of its nearest relatives, resembles it rather 
closely. Mr. Trumbull, in his admirable book, ““Names 
and Portraits of Birds which Interest Gunners,” gives 
