THE COMMON SNIPE. 
203 
come to the doors of the houses.* The most extraordinary 
assemblage of them I ever met with was in 1864, when, on the 
■ 19th of November, a calm day succeeding a series of extremely 
heavy gales, I went into the island of Balta for some snipe 
shooting, fully expecting to find the birds in some abundance, 
but scarcely prepared to meet with them in flocks. As soon as 
the first shot was fired, seventy Snipe, at the very least, rose 
simultaneously from a small marshy piece of ground about 
twenty yards square. They broke up into several parties, 
soaring high and wildly, and I took advantage of this to make 
an estimate of their number, which I did with care, well 
knowing how apt one is to form an exaggerated opinion in 
such cases. The unusual length of the grass was the probable 
cause of the gathering, and the spot was well calculated to 
afford abundance of food as well as shelter. There were other 
flocks in various parts of the island, but these were much 
smaller. Snipe are occasionally picked up dead outside the 
lantern of the lighthouse on Flugga, north of Unst, having 
come in collision with the glass. 
A Snipe, having eggs or young in the neighbourhood, will 
sometimes settle upon a wall, there to await the departure of 
the intruder, but I have only twice observed it do so in winter. 
One day in the end of November, at Petister, I saw one alight 
in a small muddy pool of water, which had collected in the angle 
of a peat dyke, and, half-wading half-swimming, scramble be- 
neath an overhanging piece of turf ; the water being sufficiently 
deep to hide part of the breast. 
* I have then frequently seen Snipe close under the window, tapping the 
ground with their bills in the vain endeavour to find a soft spot where the 
snow had been swept away. One greatly excited my compassion by its miser- 
able appearance, and I endeavoured to tempt it with some small strips carefully 
cut from the breast of a glaucous gull. These so much resembled earthworms 
that I confidently j)laced them in the bird’s Avay, but although it ran about 
among them, and evidently perceived them, it never attempted even to take 
one in its bill. I have since asked myself whether the Snipe ever does take 
food from the surface. Very early one terrible winter morning I found a dead 
Snipe upon the ledge outside the kitchen window, crouched uj) almost into the 
form of a ball, and in such poor condition, that when I took it into my hand 
its weight seemed very little more than that of a stufied skin. 
