WOODCOCK AND SNIPE 109 



Stranger to hunt over ; he would stand a good 

 chance of being bog-smothered. I was there 

 recently, probing round the edge of it, but I could 

 not get on it, not even on the tussock humps and 

 moss-cushions, for they were floating, and directly 

 you placed your foot on one it would topple over. 



The sun is sinking ; not low down yet, but low 

 enough to make that long strip of quaking bog, 

 covered only with mosses, rushes, and cotton grass, 

 look like a glorious carpet, a mile in length, and 

 fifty yards in width at its narrowest part. The 

 flaming marsh-marigolds do not grow here, for this 

 is only bog. The wooded hills on either side are in 

 shadow, but the light falls on that quake and rests 

 there. Up , from the mosses springs a Snipe with 

 ■ ' t'sick, t'sick, t'sick ! " into the calm, golden-tinted 

 sky of a soft May evening. Up he shoots, but he 

 has altered his tune a bit, " zoo-ee, zoo-ee, zoo-ee-ee ! " 

 then he stops for a second in his upward flight. 

 Down again he shoots, humming like a top. Then 

 up he shoots again with his " t'sick, t'sick ! " and his 

 *' zoo-ee, zoo-ee ! " to shoot down again humming as 

 before, zigzagging all over the place, at least all 

 over that portion of the bog where his mate is sit- 

 ting on her clutch of eggs. Much controversy as to 

 how the sound is produced — I mean the hum — have 

 we seen in papers devoted to natural history, by 

 writers who certainly ought to have known better. 

 But if you tell a certain class of very learned people 

 the simple truth, they get cantankerous, and sling 

 ink in all directions to prove that they know nothing 



