A hand-reared Snipe.


A HAND-REARED SNIPE.



Hi



The retiring habits of the Common Snipe render the study of its

habits when wild extremely difficult, and little is known regarding much of

its economy. The observations, therefore, recently made by Mr. Hugh

Worm aid and published in the January number of British Birds, on the habits

of a Snipe which he reared by hand from the egg, are of considerable

importance : and the successful hand-rearing of such a bird is certainly a

very creditable accomplishment.


The young Snipe was hatched in an incubator on May nth, 1908,

incubation having lasted twenty days, at a temperature of 102° Fahr. For

twenty-four hours the young bird was left to dry in the incubator before it

took its first meal. For the first two days of its existence, the young bird

ran backwards instead of forwards, which Mr. Wormald thinks is the habit

of the young birds in a wild state, and he has the corroboration of

Mr. Richard Kearton for his observation that young Snipe do not pick up

food for themselves at first, but take it from the bill of the parent bird. In

consequence of this habit the young Snipe had to be fed entirely' by' hand

for the first fortnight of its life, the food supplied consisting of small worms,

of which a large quantity were consumed. When the young bird had

learnt to take food itself it readily ate maggots and any' small auimalculse

that it found at the edge of a small pond, or in mud supplied to it in a pan.


On May 17th the first sign of feathers appeared on the shoulders,

after which the feathering was very rapid, the feathers on the tail and back

of the neck being the last to appear. The bird commenced to moult in the

last week of September by losing its tail-feathers; the outer pair being the

last to fall. The moult was completed a month later.


Mr. Wormald finds his Snipe very' sluggish, and believes that all

Snipe are naturally so when undisturbed. He proceeds: — “ He lives in a

cage in the smoking-room, and sits every evening on a board in front of the

fire. On being taken out of his cage and placed on the board his usual pro¬

cedure is to give himself a shake (this he always does after being handled),

and then eat two or three worms, after which he retires as near the fire as

he can get, and ‘suns’ himself for some little time.”


The extreme flexibility' of the bill of the Snipe is well known, and it

is well shown when the bird yawns, when the last inch or so of the upper

mandible is raised upwards. It enables the bird to grasp worms under¬

ground without even opening the bill itself.


The tame Snipe is noticed to feed entirely by “ feel,” being unable to

see a worm right under him, but if one is placed two or three inches directly

in front of him “ he catches sight of it at once and walks up to it, then feels

about with his bill until he touches it, when it is instantly swallowed.” He

feeds both during the day and night time, and swallows a quantity' of grit

which can be heard grinding in his gizzard quite distinctly at a distance o



