SNIPE. 



695 



safety lies, for they are without any weapons of 

 d< 'fence ; they are feeders upon small animals, and 

 their flush is much esteemed. 



Snipes are birds that make very little noise in the 

 world, excepting 1 the cry of the male in the pairing 

 time ; and they spend the greater part of the day in 

 concealment among the herbage. They are found in 

 marshy places, and generally where there is an abun- 

 dance of tall aquatic herbage to conceal both them- 

 selves and their nests. 



The bill of the snipe is a very curious instrument, 

 and seems to be possessed of very high powers of 

 'tion, both of smell and of taste. The animals 

 bore into the soft sludgy ground for no inconsiderable 

 porlion of their food, and as they bore down directly 

 upon it, and do not dabble along, and sift the sludge 

 for it, as is done by the flat-billed birds, they must 

 scent it from the surface, or, at all events, before they 

 reach the depth at which it is situated. Dabbling 

 would not answer in the places where they find their 

 :stence, as it can be performed only where there 

 is water to wash away the substances which are not 

 edible. The dabbling birds are accordingly all web- 

 footed, have their bodies boat-shaped, and are other- 

 wise adapted for swimming while they feed at the 

 bottom of the shallow water, or if their habit be to 

 get upon deeper water they can dive ; but the snipes 

 always have the feet on the ground while they feed, 

 and though they are birds of moist places they are 

 not formed for swimming or for diving. The work- 

 ing of such a bill as theirs would, in part, be impos- 

 sible in the case of a bird floating on the water; the 

 form of the head is peculiar, and the peculiarity is of 

 course adapted to the action of the bill. The head 

 is square in the profile, and extends over the base of 

 the bill in all directions, so that in whatever way the 

 bill may work in the ground, the weight of the head 

 is ready to assist it in its lateral twistings, as the 

 animal bores into the sludge. The feet of the snipes 

 are much better adapted for walking upon the surface 

 of soft mud than an elastic vegetation, as they are 

 without the long hind toe, which is so essential in the 

 latter, they are in fact birds well adapted to those 

 pastures ; and, when on a pasture properly adapted 

 to them, they have no great deal of labour to perform 

 in the finding of their food. The nature of the places 

 to which they are best adapted renders them migra- 

 tory birds in most parts of the world, as they are 

 equally liable to be fro/en out. by the cold and parched 

 out by the drought ; accordingly they migrate either 

 from country to country or from one part of the same 

 country to another, at the opposite seasons of the 

 year. We need hardly mention, that when they 

 migrate, in latitude, their migrations are southward 

 from the winter cold, arid northward from the summer 

 heat ; arid that if the country be so diversified with 

 plain and mountain as that they can find the seasonal 

 range adequate to their wants, they merely shift from 

 mountain bog to lowland marsh in the winter, and 

 back again in the summer ; by this means they enjoy, 

 evr'i, in the countries where they are resident the whole 

 year round, a much greater uniformity of climate 

 than most other birds, except those that live actually 

 upon the waters. They are, however, so close in 

 their cover during the day that they are seldom seen, 

 and many of them may be found in places where they 

 have never been suspected of visiting. 



The species are rather numerous, and they are 

 distributed over very many countries ; but as their 



manners differ little, it will foe sufficient to notice those 

 that are found constantly or occasionally in the British 

 islands, and merely to name some of the others. 



THE COMMON SNIPE (S. gaUina^i). This may be 

 regarded as the typical bird with us, though the 

 woodcock, which is a larger bird, and one in more 

 esteem with epicures, is the Becatfe of th<: 1 rench, 

 and this one is the Bccasdne. The common snipe is 

 about nine inches long in the head and body, and 

 the bill is about three inches. The weight, when 

 full-grown, is about a quarter of a pound ; the bill is 

 dull reddish at the base, yellowish in the middle of 

 its length, and brownish at the tip ; from its soft con- 

 sistency, as containing much more living substance 

 than a hard bill, it becomes shrivelled and loses its 

 colour after the bird is dead ; the colours are much 

 broken and mottled, and thus not easily described ; 

 the top of the head is dark brown, marked with three 

 longitudinal lines of crearn colour, a bright one along 

 the middle, and a more obscure one on each side 

 over the eye ; from the gape over the eye and down 

 the side of the neck there is a brown streak, which is 

 broken into a row of spots after it passes the eye ; 

 the back is black with glosses and reflections of green 

 and brown ; and the feathers on the shoulders have 

 the one striped longitudinally, and the other barred 

 across with yellow ; the wings are dusky with some 

 brown bars, and white tips to the quills ; the tail- 

 coverts are reddish brown ; and the feathers which 

 appear only a little way beyond the coverts, have 

 black bars ; the chin, throat, and fore neck are whitish 

 with irregular markings of brown, and the rest of the 

 under parts are white. 



In winter they are very common in the fens arid 

 marshes, arid by the tangled banks of streams in the 

 low and warm parts, and not one remains in the moun- 

 tain bogs, and it is probable that a considerable num- 

 ber come from countries further to the north, especially 

 when the winter in these is "early and severe. In 

 summer the departure, or, at all events, the disap- 

 pearance, from the low grounds is quite as complete ; 

 and, indeed, unless when one conies upon it acci- 

 dentally, a snipe is very rarely to be seen in summer, 

 even in those places where the cry of the male in the 

 spring shows that they are in the country. On their 

 migrations their flight is always lofty; and, though 

 they are occasionally heard ou their march, they are 

 rarely if ever seen. 



The cry of the male begins in March or April, ac- 

 cording to the place arid season, and he continues to 

 call until a partner answers ; but after this he only 

 treats her with a nocturnal song. TL<- -hrill 



but harsh and trilling, and it has been alleged that the 

 bird can trill upon the air with its wings, as is done 

 by many of the insect tribes ; but this is by no means 

 probable, as no feathered wing is competent to the 

 performance of such an office. The nest is always in 

 close concealment among the thickest of the rushes 

 or other herbage, and rudely constructed of vegetable 



