SNIPE 287 



egger, if you follow cautiously, you may see her drop to her 

 feeding-grounds from the sky with a chuck, chuck, and go 

 bibbling with a hoarser a-chuck, a-chuck, a-chuck, thrusting 

 her long bill into the duck -weed, of which they are very fond, 

 stirring it all into a froth, so quick and eager are they to 

 snatch the worms and weed and you know where they have 

 fed by their liquid dung. Then, perchance, on a sunny day, 

 you may see the cock lie on the grass sunning himself, with 

 outstretched wings, like a turtle-dove. Indeed, you may 

 watch all this at leisure, for snipe can be kept in confine- 

 ment. One gentleman I know kept a number of snipe and 

 jack-snipe, and he tells me he always fed them upon a mess 

 of worms, duck-weed, and water, the birds eating quantities 

 of worms each day. And the same gentleman tells me he 

 once flushed a jack-snipe and a whole snipe together ; so they 

 are good friends. Though preferring the inside marshes 

 when wet, you may find snipe in the most unlikely places. 

 On stubbles and on turnip-fields flocks of thirty or forty 

 may be seen at times, provided there has been enough rain 

 to soften the earth. Again, if the weather turn hard sud- 

 denly, they go to drains and dribbling brooklets, or locks 

 still unfettered by the ice ; but when these last water-oases 

 become frozen, they go away to more congenial climes. 



After the young are hatched, if the marsh has become 

 dry, the old bird will lead the young to the water-side, and 

 there you may see them feeding by the dikes ; and towards 

 the end of August they are to be found about the inside 

 marshes and on the ronds in clutches of eight, ten, and 

 twelve in number. At this season, too, they begin flighting 

 at dusk to their feeding-grounds. 



And a pretty exodus is this to the water-side. Of a still 

 summer evening you may hide in a sappy reed-bed just 

 alight with the last rays of the setting sun, and lo ! sud- 

 denly you hear a snipe a-chucking, a-chucking through the 

 silent eventide ; and if you be lucky, you may see the little 

 procession, the cock and hen flying ahead of the beautiful 



