THE JACK SNIPE. 177 



this is enforced, not by command only, not by the 

 threat of punishment and privation, but by the assurance 

 of temporal reward, by promise of the greatest bless- 

 ings that can be found on earth, length of days and 

 prosperity. 



The jack snipe (scolopax gallinula) is with us here, 

 as I have always known it, a transitory visitor in the 

 winter only a solitary, unsocial bird an anchorite 

 from choice. With the exception of our birds of prey, 

 the manner of whose existing requires it, and a few 

 others, all the feathered tribe seem to have a general 

 tendency towards association, either in flocks, family 

 parties, or pairs ; but the individuals of this species 

 pass a large portion of their lives retired and alone, 

 two of them being rarely, or perhaps never, found in 

 company, except in the breeding season. They are 

 supposed to pair and raise their young in the deep 

 marshy tracts or reedy districts of the fen-counties, 

 which afford concealment from every prying eye, and 

 safety from all common injuries. Driven by the frosts 

 of winter from these watery tracts, their summer's cov- 

 ert, they separate, and seek for food in more favored 

 situations, preferring a little, lonely, open spring, trick- 

 ling from the side of a hill, tangled with grass and foli- 

 age, or some shallow, rushy streamlet in a retired val- 

 ley. Having fixed on such a place, they seldom aban- 

 don it long, or quit it for another ; and though roused 

 from it, and fired at repeatedly through the day, neither 

 the noise nor any sense of danger seems to alarm them; 

 and, if we should seek for the little judcock on an en- 

 suing morning, we find it at its spring again. The in- 

 difference with which it endures this daily persecution 

 is amazing. It will afford amusement or vexation to 

 the young sportsman throughout the whole Christmas 

 vacation; and, from the smallness of its body, will 

 finally often escape from all its diurnal dangers. The 

 rail, and several other birds, confide for safety more in 

 their legs than their wings, when disturbed ; but this 

 snipe makes little use of its feet, and takes to its wings 

 with such reluctance, from an apparent indolence of 

 disposition, that, could it be seen in the rushes, or tufts 



