NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



The common snipe breeds, in certain chosen localities, 

 pretty freely in Britain, and is towards November 

 recruited by vast flights of the same species, which 

 arrive from Northern Europe, and, spreading over the 

 country, settle themselves temporarily in those moist, 

 marshy haunts to which during ages of the past their 

 ancestors have resorted during the winter season. 



There are, as all snipe-shooters know, certain favour- 

 ite haunts, sometimes of the smallest dimensions, 

 which snipe are certain to revisit with unfailing 

 punctuality year after year. On the other hand, their 

 appearances and disappearances often take place with 

 the most baffling irregularity. To-day a snipe bog 

 may teem with birds ; to-morrow when you visit the 

 same place the flight has vanished, and but a few odd 

 birds remain. Snipe in themselves are probably the 

 most reliable and unfailing barometers in the world, 

 and are, by their wonderful instinct and organisation, 

 able to tell exactly changes of weather, the approach 

 of which is quite unknown to human beings, as well 

 as to many of the mammals and birds. Neither the 

 jack-snipe nor the double snipe breeds in Britain or 

 Ireland. The jack-snipe, for some unaccountable 

 reason, is growing much scarcer than formerly in 

 many localities, and this in spite of the fact that where 

 common snipe are fairly plentiful the tiny "jack" 

 is often, from his diminutive size, allowed to go free. 

 The jack-snipe is a plump, delicious little bird, but 

 so small as to be really scarcely worth the bagging. 

 The double snipe, on the contrary, is an important and 

 most delicious table bird, weighing just twice as much 

 as the common species. He is usually over-fat, 

 sluggish, and not very difficult to bring down. Un- 

 fortunately in this country the appearances of this 

 magnificent snipe are so rare that few gunners, even 



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