SNIPE 



plants yields readily to the morning sun, even in hard 

 weather, and that the drippings beneath render the soil 

 there, at all events, temporarily soft. Here, then, is 

 another place of safety in all but the very severest 

 weather. But in some of those terrible winters which 

 occasionally visit these islands, even these last resorts 

 of the destitute snipe are ice-bound. Then their suffer- 

 ings begin. Perhaps even the very estuaries and 

 saltings, whither they often repair when near the coast, 

 refuse them sustenance ; the ice-king has gripped the 

 very seashore itself. Then, as we have said, snipe die 

 in hundreds, and even thousands. Their dead bodies 

 when picked up will at such times be found to be mere 

 morsels of feathers, skin, and bone. 



It is astonishing, on the other hand, with what 

 marvellous quickness these birds recover from the dire 

 starvation of a frost. The frozen places yield to the 

 thaw, worms and other succulent food are found near 

 the surface, and snipe and woodcock, and other boring 

 birds, revel in a rich food-supply, which restores to 

 them flesh and fat in an incredibly short space of time. 

 The digestive process of these boring birds is wonder- 

 fully organised, and in four or five days the snipe, 

 which before the yielding of the frost was a mere bag of 

 feathered bones, will have become, as if by magic, 

 a plump, well-conditioned bird, abundantly provided 

 with fat, and affording the most delicious and succulent 

 eating. 



Three kinds of snipe are familiar to sportsmen in 

 these islands : the common or full snipe, which weighs, 

 in good condition, some four ounces ; the tiny jack- 

 snipe, weighing little more than two ounces ; and 

 the double or great snipe, sometimes called the solitary 

 snipe — the scarcest of the three species — which will 

 weigh as much as eight, nine, or even ten ounces. 



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