204 SNIPE-BREEDING IN BRITAIN 



missed as to be the most tantalizing little birds. They 

 have a flight quite peculiar to themselves, and are far 

 more difficult to kill than the full snipe. Save the 

 hoopoe, I know of no bird which, possessing so peculiar 

 and uncertain a flight, is so very easily killed as a 

 jack snipe. 



Snipe breed a good deal on some moors in England 

 and Scotland, and thereby afford plenty of opportunity 

 to a naturalist for studying their ways. They are 

 often seen when grouse-shooting in August, and I 

 have got as many as two and three couple a day, but 

 they are then not worth the powder and shot ex- 

 pended on them. Their flight is weakly and their 

 flesh is soft and flabby, and altogether very unlike the 

 same bird in November, after the first frost. They 

 say a snipe should be cooked by being in the cook's 

 pocket while she is preparing the joint for dinner — i.e., 

 it should be as lightly cooked as possible. An under- 

 done snipe or woodcock is a delicious morsel, but if 

 overdone is simply abominable, and more like leather 

 than meat, and most indigestible. Indeed, it is im- 

 possible to tell what one is eating unless informed. 

 I have at large dinner-parties seen other birds success- 

 fully passed off for snipe, the heads having been 

 removed. 



Although the young of snipe are frequently to be 

 found in England and Scotland, 1 have never seen 

 them in Ireland, though I am aware that they have 

 been found from time to time in the latter country. A 

 young snipe is a queer little creature, and very similar 

 to a very small ball of down when a few days old ; 

 and the young of the jack snipe is still more peculiar, 

 and very small and soft. The latter do not breed in 



