SNIPE AND THEIR DISTINCTIONS 299 



so that it is extremely difficult to see a Snipe upon 

 the ground, as every experienced snipe-shooter 

 knows who has walked up to his dog's point and 

 tried to discover the bird sitting. It is a 

 wonderful provision of nature, this protective 

 colouration, to ensure the preservation of the 

 species. Few facts in natural history are more 

 striking than such harmony of colour with natural 

 surroundings. 



The distinction between English and foreign 

 Snipe is not merely a difference of size, as many 

 persons appear to think. Nothing is commoner 

 than to read of the Australian Snipe that 

 it is exactly like the English bird, only bigger. 

 The officer on leave in South Africa will affirm 

 that the Black-quilled Snipe of Natal is precisely 

 similar to the bird he has shot in Norfolk, only 

 darker ; while the sportsman who has killed a few 

 of the large snipe of South America will insist on 

 calling them "Woodcock." It is important, there- 

 fore, at the outset to recognise the difference 

 between a Snipe and a Woodcock, since this will 

 enable us to separate them at once into two well- 

 marked groups. In the Snipe the head is streaked 

 or barred longitudinally, in the Woodcock trans- 

 versely ; in the former bird the flight feathers are 

 plain, in the latter variegated. In the Snipe 

 also the leg is bare above the tarso-tibial joint 

 (popularly, though wrongly, termed the knee), while 

 in the Woodcock it is feathered to that joint. Of 

 the twenty or more distinct species of Snipe known 

 to naturalists three only are found in the British 



