1964 Birds. 



our own land of premature nidification when the temperature in early spring has been 

 unusually high. Now, I observed in Spain last winter certain deviations of habit in 

 species with which I am tolerably familiar. Whether these deviations were the result 

 of difference of climate, or of change of other circumstances, I am not prepared to say : 

 your readers shall have the facts, and may draw their own inferences. In the com- 

 mon snipe, for instance, to which I paid particular attention, and of which a good 

 many dozens fell to my gun, it did appear to me that the general habits or manners 

 were different from those of any snipes whose acquaintance I have courted in 

 this country. The Spanish snipe would much less frequently " lie " to the gun. It 

 seldom got up within satisfactory distance to the gunner, unless he had marked 

 it down, and stole upon it. When flushed, the English snipe usually takes a long and 

 high circling flight, and then drops almost perpendicularly, not unfrequently very 

 near the spot it sprung from. Not so the Spaniard, (though, be it remembered, he is 

 no Spaniard by birth, but has come southward in November) ; no ; up he gets, some 

 thirty or forty yards from you, and down he is again only some hundred and fifty yards 

 off — that is, provided you have not been clever enough to bring him down within a 

 less distance — to tantalize you with the hope of another and a nearer shot. Then, 

 again : in England I never saw a snipe on the ground before flushing it. In short, 

 many a time have I, on approaching the spot on which I have accurately marked a 

 snipe down, stopped and scrutinized most carefully with the hope of detecting the 

 little skulker, and never succeeded yet. Not so was it in Spain : there I could see 

 snipes running about on the ploughed lands, or on the margin of the pools, wading up 

 to the knees in water, or preening their feathers, as they stood on one leg on the sand 

 or on the mud ; so that I am now familiar with the terrestrial, as well as aerial move- 

 ments of the snipe. There they were, four of them, one day in the city-ditch of 

 Seville, taking their pleasure in full view, and within twenty yards of persons innume- 

 rable constantly passing and repassing. I know a snipe can be familiar in this coun- 

 try in very severe weather ; for I have known snipes to be caught in steel traps in a 

 farm-yard : but it was not severe weather, and consequent short commons at Seville 

 which produced this familiarity, bordering at least upon contempt. The jacksnipe was 

 equally bold ; for I saw him too in the self-same ditch. I may be wrong in attribut- 

 ing these differences of habit to difference of climate. They may have resulted from 

 the known or supposed absence of danger : for it was not till quite lately that the Spa- 

 nish sportsman considered the snipe an object worthy of his gun, or, it may be, 

 within its and his own capabilities, — at least, so testifies Mr. Ford, our highest autho- 

 rity in Spanish sports. That birds possess a certain amount of discrimination I am 

 pretty confident. If they be not capable of reasoning, they do somehow or other infer 

 pretty correctly whether they are, or are not the object of the gunner's pursuit. 



I remember an incident, apparently in point, which struck me forcibly at the time : 

 some years ago I was in the habit of taking an early walk ; and my usual path led di- 

 rectly through a very well-stocked preserve. It is not to be supposed that I could 

 pass and repass daily among some hundreds of pheasants, and not make ray observa- 

 tions on their growth and change of plumage, especially as there were among them 

 many of the pied variety, at that time new to me. So little did these birds regard my 

 presence, that they would allow me to approach within forty or fifty yards with- 

 out showing other sign of alarm than the mere elevation of the head. Well, the last 

 morning of September arrived, — I walked as usual ; and as usual admired the gor- 

 geous display of cock pheasants, now in full and brilliant plumage. I remember stop- 



