280 WOODCOCK AND SNIPE 



WOODCOCK AND SNIPE 

 [W. P. PYCRAFT] 



The very mention of the words "woodcock" and "snipe" 1 is 

 enough to quicken the pulses of sportsmen, for they stand for 

 strenuous days with gun and dog, and "delicatessen" by glowing 

 hearths, when all without is cold and desolate ! But there are other 

 points of view from which snipe and woodcock may be regarded, and 

 unfortunately they have been sadly neglected, so that we know far 

 less of these birds, in so far as how they " live and move and have 

 their being" is concerned, than should be the case when we recall 

 the generations of men who, from their love of sport, and wild places, 

 have lived, almost the year round, in the haunts of their eagerly 

 sought quarry. 



No one better than the sportsman knows how difficult woodcock 

 and snipe are to find that is to say, how closely they resemble their 

 surroundings. Yet it never occurred to him to speculate on the 

 possible meaning of this harmony between the bird and the brakes 

 and briars. Others no less keen on wild life, but surveying it with 

 other eyes, have, however, succeeded in no small measure in establish- 

 ing a relationship between these. During recent years it has been 

 made more and more certain that the coloration of birds and beasts 

 is fraught with a deep meaning ; though this meaning has been 

 confused by mistaken attempts to make one interpretation fit all 

 cases. This is folly. What, anyhow, is the significance of the 

 coloration of the birds now under consideration ? Be it noted this 

 coloration, as we have just hinted, is of such a character as to render 

 the wearers almost indistinguishable from the soil and vegetation 

 around them. It is a protective garment, conferring invisibility as 



1 Snipe (with a capital) refers to the genus only, i.e. all its species considered collectively. 

 EDIT. 



