BIRDS. 317 



reaching so low as the birds of any other dass. Such a covering 

 there would rather be prejudicial, as being continually liable to 

 get wet in the water. 



As these birds are usually employed rather in running than in 



being drawn, and is in universal estimation as an exquisite game. It is 

 caught in various ways, and is well known to be a difficult shot, when 

 turning and winding in the air ; though by no means so when suffered to 

 proceed in a right line, especially as the smallest grain of lead is sufficient 

 to bring it down, and the slightest touch will make it fall. 



The Double Snipe was considered by Buffon as a mere variety of the 

 common, as that naturalist probably took into consideration only its supe- 

 rior size, and the trifling difference of the plumage. It has, however, 

 since his time, been ascertained to be a different species. It differs from 

 the common snipe in its cry, in its flight, which is generally direct, and 

 with few or no circlings, and in its habits, prefeiTing to marshy and muddy 

 grounds, those places where there is but little water, and where it is clear. 

 There is little else worth remarking conci^rning it. 



The Little Snipe is not l;u"ger than a lark. It is less generally ex- 

 tended than the common species. In France, it remains in the marshes 

 almost during the whole year, where it nestles and lays eggs, like those of 

 the common snipe. Concealed in reeds and rushes, it remains there so per- 

 tinaciously that it is necessary almost to walk upon it to make it rise. Its 

 flight is less rapid and more direct than that of the common snipe. Its fat 

 is equally fine, and its flesh similarly well-flavoured. It is not very com.' 

 men in this country. 



There is a number of other species of woodcock and snipe, but there is 

 nothing in their habits to induce us to exceed the limits to which we are 

 necessarily prescribed in this portion of our work. 



The Godwits are to be distinguished from the foregoing. The woodcocks, 

 properly so called, inhabit woods. The snipes live in fresh water marshes ; 

 but the godAvits prefer the sea-shore. The passage of the hist into the tem- 

 perate climates of Europe takes pl.ace in September, and, for their short 

 stay, they frequent salt marshes, where like the snipes, &c. they live on 

 small worms, which they draw out of the mud. Those which are some- 

 times to be met with in inland places, have doubtless been driven there by 

 the wind. Mauduyt, who observed some of them exposed for sale in the 

 Parisian markets, in spring, concluded, and justly, that they make a second 

 passage in spring, and not that they ever nestle on the French coasts, 

 'i'hese timid birds, whose sight moreover is weak, remain in the shade 

 during the day-timi', and it is only by evening twilight, or early dawn, 

 that they proceed in search of food, for the discrimination of which their 

 bill is particularly fitted. Little stones are sometinu's found in their giz. 

 7ard, but we cannot conclude that these hard substances answer with them, 

 AS with the galliuii', for the trituration of their food, which is too soft to 

 require any thing of the kind, but rather that they have been taken iu along 

 with it. 



Tliese birds are particularly wild, and fly precipitately from the slighti'^t 

 appearance of danger, uttering a iry which Helon compares to the smolli. 

 ered bleating of a she-goat. At the time of their arrival they are seen ia 



