COMMON SNIPE. 15 



In Ireland it is particularly abundant; I have seen them 

 there in numbers frequenting elevated heathy ground, as well 

 as the sides of streams. They are however said to be now 

 somewhat less numerous there than formerly. 



These birds travel at night, and large nights arrive annually 

 on the north-eastern coasts, chiefly in the beginning of November, 

 from Norway and the other countries of old Scandinavia. In 

 the autumn they descend from their higher breeding-grounds, 

 and spread over the country, where they are then found in 

 almost all moist or watery places. They seldom remain long 

 in one spot, some change either of the weather or the wind, or 

 other cause unknown to us, regulating their movements, which 

 are thus conducted rather capriciously as we might be disposed 

 to consider, but doubtless not without good reasons of their 

 own. 



The Snipe is usually found in wet and marshy situations, 

 and by the sides of ponds, lakes, rivers, and rivulets, drains, 

 ditches, and canals, but also at times on heathy hills, and 

 this too in flocks. They assemble thus in considerable 

 numbers, though not very closely, not so much, as it would 

 appear, from a desire of association among themselves, as from 

 like motives in the choice of ground; vast numbers as well 

 as smaller flocks thus collect together, but they preserve no 

 community in their movements, each Snipe taking its own 

 way, and settling again, some nearer, some farther off; single 

 birds, it may be, returning again one by one after a time. 

 They approach the neighbourhood of houses without fear: I 

 have put up some this winter during the snow-blast we have 

 had, and shot one, standing in my own garden, which is 

 bordered by a little running stream. 



When the still waters are frozen up they naturally resort 

 to running streams and warm springs, where the sources of 

 supply are still left open to them. In winter they may often 

 be observed on the sea-shore. As many as nineteen are said 

 to have been killed at a single shot, if so one may say, of 

 a double-barrelled gun. W. F. W. Bird, Esq. informs me that 

 the Snipe at times approaches London very closely, and that 

 within the last five years he has known them killed in 

 Islington, and one also within the last few years, on the 

 spot where the New Cattle Market now stands. This bird, 

 when by itself, generally lies pretty close, but if a number 

 are together it makes them much more careful, and the 

 note of alarm given by the first causes all the others to get 



