WADING BIRDS AND SHORE BIRDS. 



177 



sensitively as 

 were a finger. 



not at all webbed, while others, like some sandpipers' 

 feet, are half-webbed. The snipe family love the damp 

 cr marshy ground, for into this they thrust their long soft 

 bills that are provid- 

 ed with the sense 

 of feeling. The bill 

 feels for a worm as 

 if it 

 The 



woodcock, now be- 

 coming rare at the 

 East, where it has 

 chiefly lived, is the 

 most interesting of 

 the snipes. 



It has a striking 

 head. Its eye is 

 strangely located, and 



its ear is under the eye. Both old and young are 

 marked so much like the ground and the moss, that it 

 is difficult to discover them. Their brooding habits 

 are quite peculiar. An English sports- 

 man and naturalist says: "From 

 close observation I found that the old 

 woodcock carries her young, even 

 when it is larger than a snipe, not in 

 her claws, but by clasping the little bird between her 

 thighs." 



Where neither snipe nor woodcock abound, shore- 

 walkers may perhaps be seen. The plover and the sand- 

 piper are closely related to the snipe. So is the lap- 

 wing spoken of on page 8. 



L. C. 12. 



White Whooping Crane. 



Half-webbed Foot. 



