AUTUMN AND WINTER BIRDS 127 



quantity that a single bird can devour is 

 enormous. 



Sportsmen know that woodcocks are here to-day, 

 gone to-morrow. Where they were in plenty 

 yesterday, not one remains. Ireland affords the 

 best shooting. There fifty brace have been shot in 

 one day. This feat was the result of a wager, and the 

 bag was made by 2 p.m., with a single-barrel flint- 

 lock. The 'cock were shot in an old, moist wood; 

 and it is in such spots on the mild west coast that the 

 " woodsnipe " finds its favourite haunt. In England 

 the birds affect coppice-woods frequenting most 

 those which are wet, and such as have rich deposits 

 of dead and decaying leaves. None of our birds 

 conforms better or more closely to its environment. 

 The browns and duns and yellows of its plumage have 

 all their counterparts in the leaves among which it 

 lies. Its protection lacks in one thing, however, 

 and that is its large dark eye. This is full, bright 

 and obtrusive. It is not often that a special pro- 

 vision of this kind is injurious to its owner; but the 

 lustre which beams from the woodcock's eye is apt 

 to betray its presence, perhaps slightly to negative 

 the advantage of its protective colouring. 



An interesting little bird, which every year comes 

 to this country from the north, is the snow-bunting. 

 It travels from within the Arctic circle, and so vari- 

 able is its plumage that naturalists almost despair 



