112 LAND BIRDS 
season. They usually migrate in small companies. Dur- 
ing the breeding season solitary birds are frequently seen, 
which spring from the marsh grass with a harsh ery and 
zigzag swiftly out of sight in a way most tantalizing to 
the sportsman. Only an expert can hope to bag them. 
The Jack Snipe frequents low wet places, obtaining 
food after the manner of a woodcock, by probing with 
its long slender bill, which, although not prehensile to 
the extent of a woodcock’s, is yet very sensitive at the 
tip, and readily detects the choice morsels of food down 
in the damp earth. 
Their capricious selection of feeding ground seems to 
be governed by some occult knowledge as to the con- 
ditions of the soil, for they are here to-day, gone to- 
morrow, and often the only places which seem most 
likely to be their haunt will not be visited by them 
at all. 
Mr. Bailey writes of the Jack Snipe: “ He is a com- 
mon bird wherever there are marshes to his taste... . 
On warm summer evenings or cloudy days before a 
storm, he mounts high in the air and with rapidly vi- 
brating wings produces a prolonged whirr that increases 
to a diminutive roar, and repeats it every two or three 
minutes for sometimes half an hour. At other times he 
flies low over the grass uttering a guttural chuck-chuck- 
chuck-chuck-chuck, and then drops out of sight. His 
common all-round-the-year note is a nasal squawk.” 
