SCOLOPACID.E. 327 



one shot neir Honiton, which was in the collection of our late friend 

 Mr. John Marshall, of Belmont, Taunton, We have two in our collection, 

 but not obtaiued in Devonshire, and we have others almost pure white, 

 and a very pretty golden-buff one. Eoth the eggs and the newly-hatched 

 young of the Snipe correspond in colour with the tints of the peaty 

 ground and bog herbage where they are to be met with, and when the 

 nestlings crouch close to the ground, as the young of all the Scolopacidce, 

 Plovers, GalliuEe, <fcc. do instinctively on the sign of any danger, it is 

 almost impossible to see them, and we have repeatedly all but trodden 

 upon them, although the actions of the old birds indicated that they were 

 close at hand, before we have discovered them. 



There is a very singular district in the West of England where we 

 have often shot tSuipe — the Mid- Somerset peat-moors, where occasionally 

 a great number of the birds assemble. The peat is cut out and stacked 

 for burning in squares, and the hollow pieces of ground which remain 

 when it has been removed soon fill in again with half liquid peaty earth, 

 which becomes covered over with rushes and other vegetation, affording 

 plenty of harbour for Snipe, and sometimes Teal. Numerous wide ditches 

 intersect the ground in all directions, many of them fringed with aquatic 

 plants. The shooter either has to cross these with the aid of a leaping- 

 pole, or has some one with him to carry a plank, or, as a dernier ressort, 

 has to trust to his jumping powers in order to clear them. We never 

 went to these moors after Snipe without taking a carpet-bag containing 

 a complete change, and there was never an occasion when it was not 

 required. One day, when we were in company with a friend, we simul- 

 taueously fell into ditches at some little distance from each other, and 

 our friend, emerging first, looked in the direction from which we had 

 just fired, and stated afterwards that he could see nothing beyond our 

 hat floating on the top of the water ! We had dropped a couple of Snipe 

 to a right and left, the birds had fallen on the other side of one of the 

 ditches, and when we attempted to jump it the treacherous bank on the 

 far side gave way, and we tumbled backwards into the water ! Nearly 

 the whole time one is shooting on these peat-grounds continual jumping 

 is re(|uircd from tussock to tussock, as the hollow grounds in the winto- 

 time have generally plenty of water upon them, and if the footing on ono 

 of these tussocks is missed, a plunge into nearly knee-deep mud and 

 water is the uncomfortable result. The Snipe are wild, generally spring- 

 ing at a forty-yard rise, so that the keeper's words proved true enough : 

 " Gentlemen as looks down to see where they are going don't get many 

 Snipe.' IJut not all the grounds were as bad as this ; still it was, on the 

 whole, a difficult country to negotiate, and the bunch of Snipe we carried 

 off at the end of our day was well earned. We have, after heavy rains 

 in July, occasionally seen swarms of Snipe on the peat-moors at the 

 beginning of August, at wliich time of the year, as all sportsmen know, 

 tlie flesh of the birds is raidc and dark-coloured, and it would bo a shame 

 to shoot them. We have seen Snipe alight on the bare ground by the 

 side of a little ditch, and run at once into cover, and have often been 

 astonished at the small tuft of grass behind which the bird is able to 



