210 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



damp from brushing against wet herbage. I have noted this 

 feature in many other birds addicted to running or creeping 

 about amongst plants that may often be rain-soaked. 



The true home of the Jack-Snipe is in permanent marsh 

 with preferably a peaty humus. Thousands of small ponds 

 throughout the country supply the necessary conditions, and in 

 these the bird lives unsuspected by most men, and free from 

 enemies or rival species — with one striking exception, which I 

 shall discuss later. So far as a barrier to human beings is con- 

 cerned, five feet of peaty mud of unknown depth is as good as 

 fifty yards when no reason for crossing it is evident. The bird 

 has little to fear from Stoat or Kestrel, or even, after considering 

 the local conditions, from the Heron. Such creatures as Har- 

 riers and Bitterns, once abundant in Europe, were perhaps the 

 factors stimulating the Jack- Snipe* to adopt its present livery 

 and habits ; and to-day the bird is left with hardly any enemy 

 except the combination of a man with a gun and a dog. As a 

 consequence it is firmly established as a common British bird, and 

 one that can only be attacked by the destruction of its haunts. 



It is a common joke that the novice can return again and 

 again to the same corner of marsh to flush, shoot at, and miss 

 the same Jack-Snipe. Yet this still .holds good if the bird 

 be killed each morning ! Some tiny pond may never hold more 

 than one, or perhaps two birds. If one be flushed by a dog and 

 shot, the place will hold another the next day, if not the same 

 day at a later hour. This process can be repeated far into the 

 winter : I am speaking now in general terms, and of districts 

 where the conditions are suited to the peculiar requirements of 

 the bird. Thus it will be seen that it is the race and not the 

 individual that is constant to the favourite habitat. The Jack- 

 Snipe is as faithful — if this be the proper term — to its marsh as 

 the Sand-Martin is to its particular river-bank, or the Bittern to 

 its reed -bed. Like them, it is fitted to these particular surround- 

 ings, and is uncomfortable and unsafe anywhere else. 



I recollect the case of a man actually killing from a single 

 small pond a Snipe a day for eighteen consecutive days. I 

 forget how many of these were Jacks, but I see no reason to 

 doubt that the same process could be gone through by one who 



* As a species, acting upon it by eliminating the least protected individuals. 



