THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
daddy long -legs, and to small molluscs, and will pick up small insects 
of all sorts and kinds when not engaged in the more serious task of 
worm-hunting. Mr Hugh Wormald has published a delightful account of 
the habits of a tame snipe hatched by him in an incubator. The bird 
was unable to detect a worm placed right under it ; but if placed 
two or three inches in front, it would catch sight of it at once, walk up 
to it, feel about with its bill till it touched it, and then instantly swallow 
it. This clearly shows the sensibility of the bill. Mr Wormald ’s snipe 
fed at intervals throughout the whole day and night, and eat a large 
quantity of grit and small pebbles, which could be heard grinding in 
its gizzard quite distinctly at a distance of several feet, especially 
immediately after feeding; the gizzard was heard to grind twelve times 
to the minute. The digestion was wonderfully rapid, so much so that he 
does not think a worm remained in the bird for more than ten minutes. 
Its hearing was very acute, and it was observed to listen like a thrush, 
then drive its bill into the turf and bring out a worm, which it sucked 
down with no apparent exertion. The bird did not throw back its head, as 
one constantly sees depicted, but rather stretched out its neck, the bill 
pointing downwards. If the worm was too large to be swallowed whole, 
it was hammered and pinched until broken up, when the pieces were 
swallowed separately. Another writer in the “ Field,” also describing 
the habits of a tame snipe, says that except when very hungry, it 
generally washed each worm before eating it. After carefully clean- 
ing a worm the bird would disable it by pinching it all over with the 
tip of its bill, and then, taking it by the middle, suck it down doubled 
up. 
It has often been stated that snipe will eat vegetable matter, but the 
observations made on birds in captivity seem to prove conclusively that 
this is a mistake, and that any such matter found in the bird is swallowed 
accidentally, either in or with the insects and worms it eats. Snipe in 
captivity can be taught to eat various kinds of animal food, such as bits 
of raw flesh, strips of raw tripe, and even bread and milk, but to keep the 
bird in health, worms should be added to this diet. 
Flight . — ^The flight of a snipe is very swift, and when getting up speed 
on first rising, the bird has a curious way of twisting from side to side. 
This habit, commonly seen in the birds inhabiting colder climates, is 
much less conspicuous or absent in those met with in warm countries, such 
as India. The sportsman accustomed to shoot snipe in the British Isles, 
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