COMMON S N I P E. 251
In Ireland it is particularly abundant; I have Been them there in
numbers frequenting elevated heathy ground, as well as the sides of
streams. They are however said to be now somewhat less numerous
than formerly.
These birds travel at night, and large nights arrive annually on
the north-eastern coasts, chiefly in the beginning of November, from
Norway and the other countries of old Scandinavia. In the autumn
they descend from their higher breeding grounds, and spread over the
country, where they are then found in almost all moist or watery
places. They seldom remain long in one spot, some change either of
the weather or the wind, or other cause unknown to us, regulating
their movements, which are thus conducted rather capriciously as we
might be disposed to consider, but doubtless, not without good reasons
of their own.
The Snipe is usually found in wet and marshy situations, and by
the sides of ponds, lakes, rivers, and rivulets, drains, ditches, and
canals, but also at times on heathy hills, and this too in flocks. They
assemble thus in considerable numbers, though not very closely, not
so much, as it would appear, from a desire of association among
themselves, as from like motives in the choice of ground: vast numbers
as well as smaller flocks thus collect together, but they preserve no
community in their movements, each Snipe taking its own way, and
settling again, some nearer, some farther off; single birds, it may be,
returning again one by one after a time. They approach the neighbourhood
of houses without fear: I have put up some this winter
during the snow-blast we have had, and shot one, standing in my
own garden, which is bordered by a little running stream.
When the still waters are frozen up, they naturally resort to rivers,
brooks, streams, and warm springs, where the sources of supply are still
left open to them. In winter they may often be observed on the seashore.
As many as nineteen arc said to have been killed at a single
shot, if so one may say, of a double-barrelled gun. W. F. W. Bird,
Esq. informs me that the Snipe at times approaches London very
closely, and that within the last five years he has known them killed
in Islington, and one also within the last few years, on the spot
where the New Cattle Market now stands. This bird, when by itself,
generally lies pretty close, but if a number are together it makes
them much more careful, and the note of alarm given by the first
causes all the others to get up: when the wind is high, they seem to
rise more readily than at other times. It is, as need hardly be mentioned,
in much esteem for the table, and sonic are taken in springes,
but the most are procured with the gun.