FURRED AND FEATHERED YOUNGSTERS. 35 



the few pairs that now frequent it will go ; for 

 preparations are well advanced for draining the 

 moor — the bog portion of it, not the heathery parts 

 — for purposes of spade-husbandry. Miles of what 

 four years ago was swamp -bog are now covered 

 with vegetable-gardens, and more will follow. 



Last November — 1893 — I was walking up the side 

 of the bog-meadow looking after snipes ; this Feb- 

 ruary — 1894 — I went there again for the same 

 purpose,^ and found, to my astonishment, a fine 

 double-span glass-house, quite 200 feet in length, 

 erected in the centre of the now completely drained 

 meadows, for fruit-growing ; the alders and reeds 

 are all gone. 



Our favourite hunting-swamps are almost things 

 of the past now. I have never heard that snipes 

 move their young as the woodcocks do, and have 

 never known them at any time to lead their chicks 

 about in the open manner that the woodcock will 

 do at times under favourable conditions. 



Young snipes, like their parents, are hideling 

 squatters. At first they are not firm on their legs, 

 at least they appear to wobble a bit as they tumble 

 out of their flag-and-rush nest if alarmed. At the 



