124 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



return of either of the merlins sometimes more, 

 sometimes less but they never seemed willing to 

 give up the sport until at least three snipes had 

 fallen to their own share. 



The jack-snipes (Scolopax gallinula), which 

 were tolerably abundant, but which I seldom con- 

 sidered worth shooting, used to endeavour to 

 evade the deadly stroke of the merlin in a very 

 different manner from that adopted by the com- 

 mon or " full " snipe, as it is there termed, and 

 with far greater success. Difficult to spring at all 

 times, it was almost impossible to start this cun- 

 ning little fellow from the heath when his enemy 

 was on the wing : indeed, without the co-opera- 

 tion of Pluto the attempt would have been utterly 

 futile ; but when the steady gaze of that infallible 

 quadruped continued to be rivetted on a particu- 

 lar bit of ground, on every inch of which you had 

 already trod except the very one under his nose ; 

 then might you have staked your existence that 

 on that identical spot a jack-snipe lay squatted, 

 and when at last discovered and started, instead 

 of flying boldly away and endeavouring to escape 

 by power of wing, this little fellow would perform 

 a puzzling zig-zag sort of movement for forty or 

 fifty yards, utterly mystifying the merlin, and then 

 suddenly dropping on the ground, would defy us 



