2272 PL O VERS, SA ND PIPERS, SNIPE, JA CA NA S, G ULLS 



of the direction in which they wish to go, and having started in a particular line of 

 flight, keep to it, unless turned by some alarming apparition before them. Not so 

 with the .snipe, however; he springs from the ground uttering his curious squeaking 

 cry, darts a few yards one way, changes his mind, and turns almost at right angles 

 to his original course; then he appears to think he has made a mistake, and now 

 alters his direction, and so twists off, ' angling ' across the meadow until he is out of 

 gunshot. He then either rises high in the air and swings about for awhile, looking 

 for a desirable spot to alight, or else settles down into a straight, swift course, 

 which he keeps up until his fright is over, or he has come to a spot which 



A FAMILY OF WILSON'S SNIPE. 



is to his liking, when he throws himself to the earth, and with a peculiar toss 

 of his wings checks his progress, and alights." Fortunately for the sports- 

 man in India, where the common snipe is more abundant than elsewhere, these 

 birds do not generally indulge in such vagaries, but fly straight away. The 

 writer has, however, occasionally seen the common species dart, although the 

 pintail does so but very rarely. Unless flushed, snipe are but rarely seen on 

 the wing during the day, and their chief feeding time, like their migration, 

 is by night. In Europe snipe are essentially solitary birds, but this can scarcely 

 be said to be the case in India, where a "whisp" of from six to a dozen 

 may often be seen flying together over a marsh; while these birds may often be 

 flushed in crowds from one spot, where they must have been feeding in close prox- 

 imity. They are never found away from covert, although on rare occasions the 



