COMMON" SXIPE. 141 



visited. We generally meet with them at the 'witching hour' on flight from the higher 

 to the lower grounds; but when I have been walking on the mountains in the autumnal 

 evenings, they have passed over my head on their way from the valley towards the 

 mountain top. We can hardly walk anywhere about the town just named, (Belfast,) in 

 the autumnal or winter days, and sometimes even in those of summer, when becoming 

 dusk, without hearing the call of the Snipe on the way to its nightly quarters. 



It is an extremely interesting sight to witness these birds coming in numbers to 

 favourite night feeding-grounds, such as the 'bog meadows,' already mentioned; when 

 stationed on the ditch banks intersecting them, awaiting 'the flying' of "Wildfowl — Ducks, 

 Wigeon, Teal, etc., one hears a continual concert kept up by Snipes coming at the 

 commencement of twilight from the higher grounds — their places of refuge for the day — 

 and alighting all around, the call ceasing the moment they touch the earth. For an 

 instant only in the twilight are they seen, and then with downward pointed bill, they 

 have a most singular appearance, as they sometimes come falling, apparently from the 

 clouds, close around us. Notwithstanding their proximity, the flight being over, a perfect 

 stillness reigns, until we fire a shot, which alarms them, and those very near us take 

 wing. Should the moon 'show forth her silver lining to the night,' it is the signal for 

 them to move about from one part of the meadows to another, calling all the while they 

 are on flight. During moonlight, too, in particular, they feed much in some districts in 

 stubble and other fields. "When shore-shooting on moonlight nights, I have raised Snipes 

 from the edge of the flowing tide in Belfast Bay. The W r ildfowl shooters state that during 

 autumn and winter numbers of Snipes disperse themselves to feed every evening, but more 

 especially by moonlight, over the extensive banks of Zostera, exposed by the retiring tide 

 from either shore to the edge of the channel, along which also they may sometimes be 

 observed feeding like ordinary shore-birds. One of my informants killed three at a shot 

 on these banks by moonlight. They are not sought for here by shooters, but make known 

 their presence by their peculiar cry when they rise on wing: very rarely a few remain 

 during the day. About the little grassy pools on a low bank, over which the tide 

 always flows at extreme high water, these birds have frequently been noticed. From all 

 the low-lying night feeding-grounds visited in the manner described, they commonly take 

 their leave very early in the morning; a few lazy ones, however, remaining until 

 molested, when they fly direct to their upland, or retired haunts." 



A writer in "Loudon's Magazine of Natural History," for 1829, states, that "in the 

 latter end of October, and during the month of November, great numbers frequent the 

 broads, (or river-lakes,) with which this county, (Norfolk,) abounds. They rest on beds of 

 water-cresses, and the broken remains of the Scirpus lacustris, (which had previously been 

 cut by the marshmen, under the name of holders, for chair-bottoms,) and the Tyfa latifolia, 

 (vulgo, Gladdon,) and Sparganium ramosum, (vulgo, Black- weed,) which are used by 



