328 THE BIRDS OF DEVON. 



crouch and conceal itself. The average weight of Snipe shot at the 

 beginning of the season is 4 oz. ; adult birds, where there is good feeding 

 for them, will scale 5 oz., and a (J-oz, Snipe is not very rare, but is ex- 

 ceptionally fine. There are some examples of very large Snipe in the 

 Albert Museum at Exeter which we have gazed upon with wonder, which 

 must have scaled Goz., and, perhaps, over. The very fine Common Snipe 

 reported as having weighed 7| oz., would hardly have been credited by 

 us had not that remarkable weight been vouched for by our late friend 

 Mr. J. Gatcombe, whose carefulness and accuracy we well know to have 

 been beyond impeachment ; otherwise we should have thought there had 

 been a mistake in identification, and that this very heavy Suipe must have 

 been a fine example of Scolojm.v major. We do not consider that Snipe 

 are fit for the spit until there has been a frost or two, when the flesh 

 becomes white and sweet. 



In very hard frosts, if a Snipe be shot at the side of some unfrozen 

 spring or warm drain, another will be found on the same spot in a short 

 time, and having had such a place just outside our garden-wall we 

 have visited it and bagged three or four Snipe from it in the course of 

 the day. This proves that the hungry birds, as they are flying high 

 overhead in search of some pos(>ible feeding-ground, are cither possessed 

 of very quick sight or of some marvellous instinct which guides them to 

 the suitable spot. 



We once saw a Snipe which we had fired at porch upon a bough of a 

 tall ash-tree, and Mr. Mansel-Pleydell has recorded a similar circumstance. 

 We have several times killed two Snipe, which chanced to be crossing 

 each other, with the same shot, and once when we fired at a Snipe it flew 

 on a few hundred yards before it dropped dead on the ground, and as it 

 flew it was accompanied by another one which settled on the ground 

 by its side, and walking up we flushed this second bird and bagged it as 

 well. 



Both Woodcock and Snipe arrive continually from the beginning of 

 their autumn migration throughout the whole of the autumn and winter. 

 Not only are there successive appearances of fresh birds from abroad, but 

 those within the country are for ever shifting their position. It is owing 

 to this that the Snipe-shooter who has the range over a likely bog is 

 never without sport. He may kill every bird on his beat one day, but 

 the next time he goes out he will find as many, perhaps more, and so on 

 the time after, and da capo as long as the season lasts ; a little bog of 

 three or four acres has thus yielded us upwards of sixty couple between 

 September and February. 



In very severe frosts we have occasionally found Snipe frozen by 

 their bills to the c-round. 



