less than a century ago the early form of the word, snite, was used by the rustics in certain parts of England. Lydgate, the Suffolk poet, wrote soon after Chaucer's time :

All one to thee a falcon and a kyghte,
As good an owl as a popingaye,

A dunghill duck as dainty as a snyghte.

'Shakespeare, writing between a century and a half and two centuries later, adopted the more modern spelling, when he penned Othello :—

For I mine own gained knowledge should profane
If I should time expend with such a snipe.

'Sir John Harrington, however, contemporary with Shakespeare, used the older form. He says in his "Epigrams":

He loves your venison, snytes, quails, larks—not you.

'A very early instance of the substitution of the p for the t occurs in the Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland for the year 1512. The book records that snypes were bought at the rate of threepence a dozen. I wish I could buy them at threepence a dozen now!'

A rather strange performance, gone through by the snipe and not so very rarely witnessed by snipe

shooters, requires explanation, namely, the occasional apparent use of the bill as a lever on rising. It is quite a common thing, according to my own experience, to find people who believe implicitly that the snipe has the habit of springing from the ground on its beak; otherwise that it often, if not generallyI have heard a poaching snipe shooter maintain that it does so invariably-puts the tip of its bill on the ground and then springs upwards, using the bill much as we use a jumping pole. I quite believed this myself in younger days before I ever had the opportunity of snipe shooting; and when, not long after I began to burn powder among the long-beaks, I saw a snipe apparently execute the feat, I found full justification for the faith that was in me. I had with my own eyes seen a snipe rise on its bill, thereby receiving visual confirmation of all I had heard about the supposed habit of the bird. Time, however, set me thinking, and when light came to me I wondered at my denseness in not having already thought out the proper explanation, for this appears so simple and natural that it is difficult to imagine anyone not seeing through it at once.

One is walking, let us say, by the side of a dyke, at the end of which, at right angles, runs another dyke. As the end of the first dyke is reached, one

D

comes suddenly on a snipe which had hitherto been hidden by the bank of the second dyke. The snipe catches sight of you at the same instant that you catch sight of the snipe. The bird apparently uses its bill as a lever; it throws up its tail, and seems for a moment to balance itself on its bill--and then goes off at a mad pace uttering its cry of alarm. Though to say that the snipe has the habit of rising on its bill is absurd, one has, during the brief time possible for observation, unmistakably seen this particular bird poised above its bill while the bill touched the ground.

The very simple and natural explanation is, that at the moment the snipe caught sight of you and you of him, he happened to have his bill thrust deep into the soil. Acting instantaneously under the impulse of sudden fear, and forgetful of everything else, he sprang into the air without first withdrawing his bill from the ground; the consequence being that, while actually on the wing, he was held to the earth by the bill. at close quarters, one comes suddenly on to a snipe which chances to have its bill deep in the soil at the time, this always happens, for the bird never pauses to draw its bill before springing from the ground nor does it ever squat when all at once a human being appears in sight only a few yards away. Now and again one may

When,

see a snipe, held by its bill, turn a compiete somersault; now and again one may see a bird hang above its bill for a second or more before the hold of the earth gives way. Everyone who shoots over ditchdrained country comes upon a snipe from time to time when the bird has its bill in the soil at the moment of discerning its pursuer near at hand, and, unless quite unobservant in such matters, he cannot fail to notice the unrehearsed acrobatic feat in which

the bird engages. Hence the notion that the snipe has the habit of rising on its bill.

A playful bird is the snipe at times. When a few find themselves together on a bright sunny morning they will sometimes romp almost like young partridges. A Scottish writer said a year or two ago:

It may be interesting to know that I have seen the common snipe, numbers of them, alight on a branch of a tree which overhung a very marshy piece of grass-land. They repeatedly alighted on the branch and dropped to the ground, continuing this for at least three-quarters of an hour.

The snipe is a bird which if taken captive as an adult comes to hand' much more quickly than most others, if not more quickly than members of any family other than the finches. It makes, too, a highly interesting study when kept in confinement.

Like

nearly all birds which in a state of nature subsist on various kinds of insects, the snipe will gradually accommodate itself to substitutes for its natural diet --and this is certainly a considerable convenience to its feeder, for supplying only a single bird with all the worms it can eat is a somewhat exacting task, to say the least of it. The substitution of other diet for worms, however, must be effected gradually, as it is some little time before a snipe will take at all kindly to unnatural fare. Even when a liking for other food has been created, I do not think the bird can ever be kept in really good health without a certain small number of worms. When first being broken in, it will swallow raw tripe cut into narrow strips while declining to have anything to do with other kinds of flesh. The snipe kept in confinement should be pinioned, or, under the influence of sudden fear, it is certain, sooner or later, to stun or kill itself against the roof of its dwelling. A small cage is quite unsuited to a snipe. Unless kept in a roomy aviary or allowed plenty of liberty every day, the bird will never do well. An unlimited supply of water both for drinking and washing is absolutely necessary. When once quite tame, the snipe is very tame with those to whom it is accustomed, and likes to be fondled by them, but generally shows fear of a stranger. The