52 SCOLOPACID.E. 



Tlic favourite haunts of the Snipe are swampy meadows, 

 interspersed with patches of black mud or peat-bogs. Where 

 the Snipe does not immediately meet with such a spot, it 

 alights in the evening in wet meadows or moist heath-ground 

 on commons, on the grassy banks of ditches, rivers, and 

 ponds, or in osier-beds ; and during windy weather particu- 

 larly, among willow-stumps, felled copse-wood, and even 

 turnip-fields. It is under such circumstances that the sports- 

 man meets with it without going to the dangerous and la- 

 borious, though most proper, places. 



The food of the Snipe consists in small worms, insects, and 

 vegetable substances ; the former of which it obtains by boring 

 the moist ground of its usual abode with its long and slender 

 beak. 



The locality chosen by the Snipe affords it also every ne- 

 cessary for breeding. The nest is usually placed under the 

 shelter of decayed tall grasses, and consists in a shallow hole 

 scratched in the ground, which the bird lines with a few dry 

 bents and stalks of heath or bog-plants ; in it four eggs are 

 deposited, which are in colour and size like that repre- 

 sented in our Plate. The young leave the nest as soon as 

 they are hatched, and are under the care of the parents until 

 they are able to provide for themselves. 



The usual mode of obtaining Snipes is by shooting them 

 when on the wing, going in pursuit of them with a good 

 pointer dog. The value of Snipes in the market is not suf- 

 ficient to make a trade of obtaining them, although great 

 numbers are brought to market from localities where idle 

 gunners are enabled to kill numbers in one day ; neither is it 

 a pastime for persons who are not fond of continually wading 

 in bogs, or walking over uneven ground, where it becomes 

 very laborious to keep one's footing (these being the most 

 proper places to meet with the game in question). The re- 



