WOODCOCK AND SNIPE 107 



insect life in immature stages formed a considerable 

 portion of its food, for great quantities of it are near 

 the surface, easily probed for in spongy, moist 

 ground, not swampy. My first introduction, when 

 a child, to the Snipe family was through a Great 

 Snipe, for my father shot one many years ago. It 

 was supposed to be a very large specimen of the 

 common bird, very finely marked. My father was 

 very interested in the matter, for although a 

 thorough sportsman, so far as fowling went, he had 

 never shot one so large before. As he could draw 

 and paint, he made a very careful study of the bird 

 in crayons — French chalks they were called at that 

 time — and hung it up in one of the workshops. And 

 there it hung unframed, just as he nailed it up, for 

 more than forty years. If the place has not been 

 pulled down, for all I know that Great Snipe, 

 hanging up by a string tied to one leg, may be 

 there now. No doubt more of these birds have 

 been shot than have ever been recorded. With the 

 general run of shooters a Snipe was^a Snipe, and the 

 heavier the bird the more he fetched when sold. 

 As my father only shot for sport pure and simple, 

 and like his eldest son had a slight taste for natural 

 life, that crayon portrait was the result. If he had 

 lived long enough to read some of his son's writings 

 he would have been a firm believer in hereditary 

 transmissions. 



The nest of the Common Snipe is a slight hollow 

 lined with sedge, bits of heather or grass, as the 

 case may be. The eggs, four in number generally, 



