36 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



black or gray, longitudinally striped with white, whitish 

 and cream color and tawny, it is extremely difficult to 

 see on the ground. Once, in Montana, riding near a 

 little mud flat, dotted with tussocks of yellow grass, I 

 saw at a little distance a snipe feeding in the mud. 

 For some reason he had not noticed me until I got 

 quite close to him. Then he stopped, looked for a 

 moment, and took two deliberate steps which brought 

 him between me and a yellow tussock, the yellow of 

 which was, of course, constantly interrupted by shad- 

 ows of darker the spaces between the blades of 

 grass. Without taking my eye off him I looked at 

 the tussock, and after I had adjusted my field glasses, 

 could make out a snipe standing there in plain sight, 

 but invisible because of his background. After a mo- 

 ment or two the bird seemed to think that it had 

 been needlessly alarmed, and moved out again against 

 a dark background, where it was plainly seen; but 

 when I started my horse forward, it again became 

 alarmed and retreated to its position of shelter, which 

 again was in front of, and not behind, the tussock. It 

 seemed to understand that this background would ab- 

 solutely conceal it. This is, of course, only one of the 

 common devices of wild animals to escape the obser- 

 vation of their enemies. 



The snipe is not likely to be taken for any other one 

 of our game birds, though the dowitcher, or brown- 

 back, one of its nearest relatives, resembles it rather 

 closely. Mr. Trumbull, in his admirable book, "Names 

 and Portraits of Birds which Interest Gunners," gives 



