Birds. 4657 



approach of an enemy, and instances have occurred in which a jack 

 snipe has allowed itself to be picked up by hand before the nose of a 

 pointer." .... a It does not, when flushed, utter any note." 



In the month of March, last year, I fell in with five or six jack 

 snipes in a piece of boggy ground on the moors here, and on one of 

 these I very nearly trod as I stepped across a sort of water channel. 

 This bird, on being so very rudely flushed, did utter a note, — the one 

 solitary instance in which I have ever heard the note of the jack 

 snipe : it was a little, faint, stridulous pipe, and more resembling the 

 cry of the common bat than that of any bird I ever listened to. 



In reference to the other peculiarity in the habits of the jack snipe 

 described in the above quotation, I may mention, that as I was walk- 

 ing a few weeks since with my gun, I wounded and followed a par- 

 tridge. While searching for it I walked up a hedge, by the side of 

 which a little stream of a few inches in width trickled along. An 

 object in this stream caught my eye sufficiently to arrest my attention ; 

 a second look showed me it was a jack snipe lying perfectly motionless 

 on its breast, and with head stretched out, on the surface of the water, 

 which was streaked and spotted with a few blades and leaves of water- 

 grass and other aquatic plants. That it was not dead was apparent 

 from the fresh unruffled appearance of the plumage; that it was simu- 

 lating death was equally apparent. I stood within two paces of it, 

 watching it for a minute or two ; it remained unmoved ; I advanced a 

 step nearer, still it did not stir ; I stooped, put out my hand, and then, 

 but not until my fingers were within a foot and a half or so of it, did 

 the little fellow show that it was only feigning all this time, for quickly 

 and briskly enough it rose and flew away. 



Now, I do not hold that this jack snipe showed itself either " slug- 

 gish" or "sourde" by the conduct I have detailed ; on the contrary 

 I think, that in virtue of that instinct which, in such a vast number of 

 the animals we know most familiarly, looks so marvellously like some- 

 thing higher than what we commonly understand by instinct, it did 

 what was best and most appropriate under the circumstances and in 

 connexion with the object in view. Every wild creature, with an ex- 

 ception or two, when disturbed by man, or indeed any other of its 

 enemies, seeks refuge in one of two ways — by flight or by conceal- 

 ment ; and as far as my own observation goes, I believe that the latter 

 way is the one which the creature by its first natural impulse is led to 

 attempt, and is in fact the one much the most frequently attempted 

 when at all practicable, except under abnormal conditions. Why 

 does the hare on the stubble or fallow, as you go by her within a few 



