OUR BIRDS IN WINTER. 
109 
Really, my dear Grouse,” interrupted 
Woodcock, you make my blood run cold 
with your accounts of the infernal machines 
invented for the destruction of the birds. I 
shall hardly dare to move in the woods for fear 
of being snapped up.” 
You need have no fear,” answered Grouse, 
for it is when you happy Woodcocks are 
away from these nortliern woods, that snares 
are set, and it is very rarely indeed that they 
are placed in the woods when you are here. 
Excuse me one moment ; I espy a beetle 
creeping under those dead leaves ; let me 
catch him.” Suiting the action to the words, 
he killed and swallowed the insect, and, return- 
ing to his position near Woodcock, resumed 
his remarks. The snare that caught my 
child was of different construction from the 
other, but it was equally fatal. I did not see 
it made, but it was formed simply by- driving 
or pushing into the ground a long row of limbs 
of trees, with their foliage on, forming a natu- 
ral obstruction, that no Grouse would attempt 
to creep through, but one would most natu- 
