GRALLATORES. 189 



August, possibly driven from the moors by the 

 grouse-shooters ; but the large " wisps" of Snipe do 

 not come until October, from which month, until the 

 end of March, the bird is tolerably common, and 

 may be found at the brooks, ponds, and wide ditches, 

 as well as upon any marshy ground. During a sharp 

 frost they get to the sides of running streams and to 

 the little dykes that intersect large water-meadows. 



The food consists chiefly of small mollusca, insects, 

 and earth-worms, and I have sometimes found a 

 mass of vegetable matter in the stomach. 



Occasionally, where the situation is favourable, 

 Snipe remain throughout the summer. They are 

 early breeders, and I have taken the eggs in Sussex, 

 considerably incubated on the 29th April, although, 

 in Lancashire, on the 3rd May, I found some eggs 

 perfectly fresh. Probably the same observation made 

 with regard to the Ringed Plover applies here, viz., 

 that the further north the breeding-place, the later 

 the period of incubation. 



The situation of the nest is not always similar ; I 

 have seen it sometimes within a few yards of a pool 

 of water, a slight depression in the ground, with no 

 other lining than some dry blades of the grass 

 which grew around it and were trodden down; 

 sometimes at a considerable distance from water, 

 the hollow made by a horse's hoof thickly lined 

 with dry grass. On one occasion I found a nest 

 which was buried in the top of a tall tussock, with 



