Birds. 4659 



to fly at all, and rarely, if ever, can be flushed a second time. The 

 jack snipe and woodcock (and often the common snipe) "lie" re- 

 markably "close." The coot and the waterhen can scarcely ever be 

 driven from the sedges and reeds, and so on ; but still, allowing for 

 variation in habits, I think observation shows that wild creatures 

 generally, when they are able, through a combination of natural 

 powers and favourable circumstances, try in the first instance to avoid 

 what may be approaching danger by avoiding discovery ; if this 

 attempt appears likely to be in vain, then by flight. 



Now I think that the jack snipe I have mentioned was influenced to 

 act as it did by this instinct. There were no " strong rushes," or " coarse 

 long grass," or "luxuriant vegetation," anywhere near it : concealment 

 by such means was out of the question ; but yw^m-concealment by 

 means of utter stillness and simulated death — a means resorted to, 

 observe, by many another creature besides the jack snipe, and not 

 imputed to them as sluggishness, or stupidity, or intellectual deafness — 

 is practicable, and therefore adopted ; and, indeed, the little bird 

 might well have gone unnoticed by nine passers-by out of ten, 

 although of much quicker sight than myself. 



I know that man is " fearfully and wonderfully made," and I be- 

 lieve that the inferior orders of animate creation are, at the least, 

 "wonderfully" made, and it is with feelings of distaste that I hear 

 whole species of them vilipended as to their — what in our own case 

 we should call — common sense. It seems to me like throwing a slur 

 on Creating Wisdom. I believe that the foolish guillemot and the 

 dotterel are as sufficiently furnished with the common sense requisite 

 in their own scale of creation as the race of mankind is in theirs, 

 while I am sure that the " silly goose," the " obstinate pig," and the 

 " stubborn " and " stupid jackass," very frequently are better stocked 

 with the article in question than many of those who apply these epi- 

 thets to them ; nay, even the booby and the noddy might not be 

 found so very " deficient" after all, if only we knew them, and they 

 knew man, more intimately. For my own part, 1 have the most 

 entire conviction that the more closely we observe the ways and 

 habits of animal creation, the more thoroughly and intimately we 

 become acquainted with the laws of their being, the more searchingly 

 we trace and investigate the characters legibly — and to the true 

 inquirer not unintelligibly — impressed upon them by the Author of 

 their existence, the more, even among the most contemned and 

 despised races, shall we find to admire, to wonder at, and reverently 



