Part 87

SLEEP, _s._ Repose, rest, suspension of the mental powers, slumber.

_Sleep of Birds._—Like horses and some other quadrupeds, a great number of birds sleep standing; the perchers, (_Insessores_, VIGORS,) for example, usually sleep standing on one leg upon some tree, bush, or other elevation, with the head turned behind, and the bill thrust under the feathers on the back, or under the wing. Indeed, these appear to be the general habits of the whole race of birds, in regard to their mode of resting and sleep; for the duck and goose, although they do not perch, will frequently sleep standing on one leg upon the ground, with their heads turned round, and the bills under the wing. Poultry, although they invariably perch, if a perch can be obtained, do not, when sleeping, rest usually on one leg; but they sink down with their bodies upon the perch, having their legs compressed under them. The sky lark sleeps upon the ground with his legs also similarly compressed. It is probable also that all the tribes of birds, even the perchers, occasionally sink down with their bodies resting on the perch during their soundest sleep. What is very remarkable in the structure of their feet and legs is, that the greater the weight upon the muscles, the more firmly the claws grasp whatever they lay hold of; hence the cause that birds do not fall down in sleep, although most of their senses are dormant.

The motion of the branches of trees produced by the wind increases, doubtless, the disposition for sleep in many birds; this may be exemplified in the common fowl; for placing its bill under the wing, even in broad day-light, and swaying it to and fro in the hand for a very short time, will produce sleep. Most of the tribe of birds sleep during the night; but there are many exceptions to this. Owls in particular are, during the night, much more active than in the day; their sight, similar to that of cats, appears to serve them best in the dark. Many of the duck tribe are not only wakeful, but feed during the night; so also do the nightjars. The nightingale, and a few other song-birds, are also wakeful while in song, during at least some portion of the night.—_Montagu._

SLIME, _s._ Viscous mire, any glutinous substance.

SLIMY, _a._ Overspread with slime; viscous, glutinous, as the skin of an eel.

SLING, _s._ A missile weapon made by a strap; a kind of hanging bandage.

SLING, _v._ To throw by a sling; to throw, to cast; to hang loosely by a string; the strap attached to a rifle, and used by the marksman to steady his aim when a rest is not to be had.

SLIP, _v._ To let loose; to throw off anything that holds one; to unloose a greyhound.

SLIP, _s._ The act of slipping, a false step; mistake; a twig torn from the main stock; a leash or string in which a dog is held; an escape; a long narrow piece.

SLIPKNOT, _s._ A bow knot, a knot easily untied.

SLOOP, _s._ A small ship.

SLOT, _s._ The track of a deer.

SLOUGH, _s._ A deep miry place; the skin which a serpent casts off at his periodical renovation; the part that separates from a foul sore.

SLOW, _a._ Not swift, not quick of motion; late, not happening in a short time; not ready, not quick; dull, inactive.

SLUG, _s._ An idler, a drone; a kind of slow creeping snail; a cylindrical or oval piece of metal shot from a gun.

SMELL, _v._ To perceive by the nose; to find out by mental sagacity.

SMELL, _s._ Power of smelling; the sense of which the nose is the organ; scent.

SMELT, _s._ A small sea fish. It is of the salmon species, and in the spawning season ascends the rivers in great numbers.

The smelt derives its name from having, in the opinion of some, the scent of a violet, of others, that of a cucumber; they are met with in the seas that wash our coasts the whole year, and seldom go far from shore, except when they ascend the rivers, which they do with the tide; and in certain of which it is remarked, that they appear a long time before they spawn, being taken in abundance in the Thames and Dee in November and two succeeding months; in other rivers not until February, and in March and April they spawn, and are very prolific; after which they all return to the salt water, and are not seen in the rivers until the next season. It has been observed, that they never come into the Mersey so long as there is any snow water in its current; and that in the spring and beginning of summer they will run further up than in the decline of the year; they are also to be met with in the docks that are opened for the reception of ships. The smelt is of a very beautiful form and colour, the head is transparent, and the skin in general so thin that with a good microscope the circulation of its blood may be seen; the irides are silvery, the pupil of a full black, the under jaw is rather prominent, in the front of the upper are four large teeth, those in the sides of both are small; in the roof of the mouth are two rows, and on the tongue two others of large teeth; the colour of the back is whitish, with a cast of green, beneath which it is varied with blue, and then succeeds a beautiful gloss of a silvery hue; the scales are small and readily drop off; the tail is forked; the flesh is tender, and of a delicate taste. These fish vary greatly in size, the largest Mr. P. ever heard of was thirteen inches long, and weighed half a pound; they are often sold in the London streets under the name of dried sparlings, being split and dried, and are recommended by the gentlemen who take their gills of a morning, as adding to the wine a particular relish.

The smelt is to be angled for (when the tide runs up is preferable) with a paternoster line, having five or six hooks as many inches from each other, and baited differently. The best bait is very small fresh shrimps (not boiled), or the tail of a boiled one; next to these are gentles and red paste; also that made of boiled shrimps, fine white bread, and a little honey; cadis, blood-worms; and they will sometimes take a bit of their own species; some crumbs of bread steeped in water should be now and then thrown in to keep them together.

Walton mentions, that, many years since, in the month of August, such vast quantities of smelts came up the Thames, that women and children became anglers for them; and that in one day, between London bridge and Greenwich, not fewer than 2,000 persons were thus employed.

SMERLIN, _s._ A fish.

SMITH, _s._ One who forges with his hammer; one who works in metals.

SMITHY, _s._ The workshop of a smith.

SNAFFLE, _s._ A bridle which crosses the nose; a kind of bit for a bridle.

SNAFFLE, _v._ To bridle, to hold in bridle, to manage.

SNAKE, _s._ A serpent of the oviparous kind, distinguished from the viper. The snake’s bite is harmless.

SNAP, _v._ To break at once; to break short; to bite; to catch suddenly and unexpectedly.

SNAP, _s._ The act of breaking with a quick motion; a quick eager bite; a catch.

SNAPPISH, _a._ Eager to bite; peevish; sharp in reply.

SNARE, _s._ Anything set to catch an animal, a gin, a net; anything by which one is entrapped or entangled. The wire by which hares and rabbits are poached; horsehair loops to take small birds.

SNARE, _v._ To entrap, to entangle.

SNARL, _v._ To growl, as an angry animal.

SNET, _s. obs._ The fat of a deer.

SNIPE, _s._ A small fen fowl with a long bill.

The weight of this species is about four ounces; length near twelve inches; the bill three inches long, dusky; in some the base is lighter, flattish, and rough at the end; irides dusky; crown of the head black, with a longitudinal light rufous line down the middle; from the base of the upper mandible another line of the same colour passes on each side over the eyes; between the bill and eye is a dusky line; the throat white; cheeks, neck, and upper breast, mottled with black and light ferruginous; the back and scapulars are black, barred with ferruginous-brown, and striped with yellowish buff-colour, in longitudinal lines; the quills are black, the first edged with white; the secondaries tipped with the same; those next the body are, with their coverts, striated, and barred with light ferruginous; lower breast and belly white; vent brown; upper tail coverts brown, barred with black; the tail consists of fourteen black feathers, barred and spotted with dull orange-red towards the end, with a narrow bar of black near the tip, where it is pale rufous; legs vary; in some dusky or lead-colour, others green.

This is a plentiful species in most parts of England; and is found in all situations, in high as well as low lands, depending much on the weather. In very wet times it resorts to the hills; at other times frequents marshes, where it can penetrate its bill into the earth after worms, which are its principal food.

Some few remain with us the whole year, and breed in the more extensive marshes and mountainous bogs. We have frequently taken the young before they could fly, in the north of England, and in Scotland. Near Penryn, in Cornwall, there is a marsh where several breed annually, and where we have taken their eggs, which are four in number, of an olivaceous colour, blotched and spotted with rufous-brown; some with dusky blotches at the larger end. The nest is made of the materials around it; coarse grass, and sometimes heath. It is placed on a stump or dry spot, near a plash or swampy place; the eggs like those of the lapwing, placed invariably with their ends inwards, being much pointed; their weight three drachms and a half.

In the breeding season, the snipe changes its note entirely from that it makes in the winter. The male will keep on wing for an hour together, mounting like a lark, uttering a shrill, piping noise; it then descends with great velocity, making a bleating sound, not unlike an old goat, which is repeated alternately round the spot possessed by the female, especially while she is sitting on her nest. This bird has been met with in almost every part of the world.

_Great Snipe_, (_Scolopa Media_).—Size between the woodcock and snipe; weight eight ounces; length sixteen inches; bill four inches long, and like that of the woodcock; crown of the head black, divided down the middle by a pale stripe; over and beneath each eye another of the same; the upper part of the body very like the common snipe; beneath white; the feathers edged with dusky black on the neck, breast, and sides; and those of the belly spotted with the same, but the middle of it is plain white; quills dusky; tail reddish, the two middle feathers plain, the others barred with black; legs black. He adds, “this is a rare species.” A fine specimen of it was shot in Lancashire, now in the Leverian Museum, said also to have been met with in Kent.

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There are a good many snipes in the vicinity of that place; the marshes, however, frequented by those birds, are not very extensive, and may easily be hunted in much less than a day; but if a person be well acquainted with the ground, better snipe shooting is hardly to be met with in any country. As a proof of this, I have bagged upwards of thirty brace of those birds in seven or eight hours. These were either the common or double snipe, as I was careless of wasting my powder and shot about the jack or half snipe.

The double or solitary snipe, I usually found singly, or at most in pairs. They were generally so fat as hardly to be able to fly; indeed, if flushed, their flight was usually very short, and they presently settled again. They were nearly twice as large as the common snipe, and from their heavy and steady flight they presented the easiest mark possible. They are considered to be most delicious eating; four couple was the greatest number of those birds that I ever killed in Sweden in any one day. They were by no means plentiful in the vicinity of Gottenburg.

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The double snipe is a bird of passage, and among those which arrive the latest; in colour speckled grey, with a long bill. At the end of July, when the meadows are mowed, the shooting of these birds with the pointer commences, and continues till towards the end of September. They may also be shot during the spring; but I have observed this has diminished the autumn shooting. In the whole round of sporting, this affords one of the greatest pleasures. These birds are easy to shoot; and in some places, fifty or sixty, and considerably more, may be shot in a day, particularly in autumn, when they are so fat that they almost burst their skins. They are most delicious eating.

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In the heather surrounding a small lake in the island of Hoy, in the Orkneys, I found in the month of August, in 1817, the nests of ten or twelve couple of snipes. I was grouse shooting and my dog continually pointed them, and as there were sometimes three young ones and two old ones in the nest, the scent was very powerful.

Snipes are usually fattest in frosty weather, which I believe is owing to this, that in such weather they haunt only warm springs, where worms are abundant, and they do not willingly quit these places, so that they have plenty of nourishment and rest, both circumstances favourable to fat. In wet open weather they are often obliged to make long flights, and their food is more distributed. The jack-snipe feeds upon smaller insects than the snipe, small white larvæ, such as are found in black bogs, are its favourite food, but I have generally found seeds in its stomach, once hempseed, and always gravel. I know not where the jack-snipe breeds, but I suspect far north. I never saw their nests or young ones in Germany, France, Hungary, Illyria, or the British Islands.

In 1828, in the drains about Labach, in Illyria, common snipes were seen in the middle of July. The first double snipes appeared the first week in September, when likewise woodcocks were seen; the first jack-snipe seen, did not appear until three weeks later than the 29th of September. I was informed at Copenhagen, that the jack-snipe certainly breeds in Zealand, and I saw a nest with its eggs, said to be from the island of Sandholm, opposite Copenhagen, and I have no doubt that this bird and the double snipe sometimes make their nests in the marshes of Holstein and Hanover. An excellent sportsman and good observer informs me, that in the great royal decoy, or marsh preserve, near Hanover, he has had ocular proof of double snipes being raised from the nest there; but these birds require solitude and perfect quiet, and, as their food is peculiar, they demand a great extent of marshy meadow. Their stomach is the thinnest among birds of the scolopax tribe, and, as I have said before, their food seems to be entirely the larvae of the tribuæ, or congenerous flies.

_Snipe Shooting._—Snipes when plenty afford very excellent sport, it being allowed to be the pleasantest, on account of the quick succession of shots; this is also the best shooting for practice, seldom failing to make indifferent shots most excellent ones. There is no shooting that presents such a variety of shots, scarcely any two being alike.

These birds usually fly against the wind, therefore every snipe-shooter should walk down it, as by that means the bird, if he rises before him, will fly back, and coming round him, describe a kind of circle; or at least his flight, for a certain distance, will not lengthen the shot, allowing him a certain time to cover the bird and take good aim; for if he gets up before him, and should by chance go down the wind, or from him, it is then the most difficult shot. It will be proper, in this case, to let the bird get a little distance from him, as then he will fly steadier and the slightest grain will fetch him to the ground.

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When shooting snipes in the vicinity of Gottenburg, one’s sport mainly depends on the weather. If it blows hard from the westward, a strong current sets into the river from the North Sea; this impedes its course, and causes it to overflow its bounds, in which case many of the marshes become partially overflown, when the snipes, from finding little shelter, usually lie light, and are difficult to approach. If, on the countrary, the wind should be moderate, or from the eastward, and the water consequently low, those birds have abundance of cover, and it is easy therefore to get within range of them.

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Pointers are made use of by many in shooting this species of birds, and, what is very singular, although these birds are so diminutive, in comparison with game which pointers are most accustomed to, yet they will stand equally staunch to them; even to the jack-snipe, which is the smallest of these birds. If you make use of a pointer it ought to be a very old staunch one, for two reasons; the first is, that this diversion not only spoils young ones, but slacks their mettle, as the points come so fast upon them, that if they become habituated to snipes, they will not look for other game, by reason of their getting a number of points without any exertion; secondly, a young pointer will be too quick for the snipe,—on the contrary, an old one would not be able to go out of a very slow pace, and, if under good command, will give the most satisfaction. When these birds are very plenty, the snipe-shooters never make use of a dog, as they always walk them up, which is found to answer best, and afford the most sport.

A pointer that is much used for grouse or partridge, should never be taken out snipe or pheasant shooting; for if he once gets accustomed to snipes, he will often baulk you on the moors in the grousing season; for as snipes are frequently met with at that time on them, if he points one, he may often give you a good walk and trouble, before you get to him, supposing it is game, and you are not a little mortified to find it only a snipe: and if accustomed to pheasants, he will be always puzzling about hedges, and not beat his ground as he ought to do. An old pointer may also be made use of for pheasants, as well as snipes.

The jack-snipe (_Vide_ JUDCOCK) is esteemed the most difficult shot, although he seldom, on rising, makes any twistings or twinings, and will alight or pitch again, after being fired at, within a couple of hundred yards. Every sportsman that has been much accustomed to snipe-shooting, will allow, that a jack-snipe will suffer himself to be fired at twenty times in the same field, and will pitch each time so close to the shooter, that he frequently conceives that he has wounded him. They lie so close, that a staunch pointer might remain at his point until the moon changed, as this bird will not rise until forced to do so. A most curious circumstance which occurred respecting a jack-snipe that was sprung several times by a Mr. Molloy, formerly a quarter-master of the 64th regiment, while he was quartered at Geneva barracks, Ireland, is well worth relating: he regularly, after his duty was done, or if he could possibly obtain leave for a day, used to equip himself for shooting, and always sprung this jack-snipe, at which he fired and followed, and the bird used to pitch so close to him at times, that he was confident he had shot it, and used to run to take it up, when, to his great surprise, it would rise and fly a little farther; he actually acknowledged he fired, one day, eighteen times at this bird, and after shooting at it for the whole season, he happened to be crossing the bog it lay in, when he put it up, and exclaiming, “there’s my old friend,” threw his stick at it, and killed it on the spot. Whenever, after, any of his brother officers found a jack-snipe, they were always sure to say, “there goes Quartermaster Molloy.”

In Ireland, in the bottoms of the county of Limerick, about Charleville, these birds are in the greatest abundance, as it is not uncommon to hear of a person shooting twenty brace of them in the morning. The late Sir George Dunbar, of the 14th regiment of Light Dragoons, when quartered at Charleville, won a considerable wager by shooting forty-three brace between ten o’clock in the morning and four in the afternoon; and what appears still more extraordinary is, that although there are so many sportsmen about that place, who follow these birds, and others who net them, yet you find always enough of sport the day following; for there seem to be as many snipes, after two months’ destruction, as there were at the beginning of the season. The compiler himself has shot twenty brace, frequently, in a day, in the county of Cork; and, in the county of Limerick, has fired so often, that he has been forced to wait for the barrel of the gun to cool, before he durst attempt to reload.—_Thornville_—_Daniel_—_Lloyd_—_Latham_—_Grieff._

SNORT, _v._ To blow through the nose, as a high-mettled horse.

SNOUD, _s._ The finer part of the line to which, in sea-fishing, the hook is immediately attached.

SOAP, _s._ A substance used in washing.

SOAR, _v._ To fly aloft, to tower; to fly without visible action of the wings.

SOAR, _s._ Towering flight; the flight of the eagle and falcon.

SOAR HAWK, _s._ So termed from the time she leaves the eyrie until she mews her feathers.

SOCIABLE, _s._ A kind of phaeton, with two seats facing each other, and a box for the driver.

SOIL, _s._ Dirt, spot, foulness; land, country; dung, compost; cut grass given to cattle; _to take soil_, in hunting; to go into water.

SOLDER, _v._ To unite or fasten with any kind of metallic cement; to mend, to unite anything broken.

SOLDER, _s._ Metallic cement.

SOLE, _s._ The bottom of the foot; the bottom of the shoe; the part of any thing that touches the ground; a kind of sea fish. Soles will take a bait freely; but they are generally taken with a trawl net.

SOLID, _a._ Not fluid; not hollow, compact, dense.

SOLUBLE, _a._ Capable of dissolution or separation of parts.

SOLUND or SOLAN GOOSE, _s._ A fowl in bigness and feather very like a tame goose, but his bill longer. _Vide_ PUFFIN.

SONG, _s._ Anything modulated in the utterance; a ballad, a poem, lay, strain; poetry, poesy; notes of birds; an old song, a trifle.

_Song of Birds._—As the song of birds is not allowed to be the effect of love, by an honourable author on the subject of singing birds (Daines Barrington), we shall endeavour to elucidate this matter from experiments on birds in their natural wild state; and also endeavour to prove that their notes are innate, contrary to that author’s opinion. That confined birds will learn the song of others they are constantly kept with, there is no doubt; but then it is generally blended with that peculiar to the species. In the spring, the very great exertions of the male birds in their vociferous notes are certainly the calls to love; and the peculiar note of each is an unerring mark for each to discover its own species. If a confined bird had learned the song of another, without retaining any part of its natural notes, and was set at liberty, it is probable it would never find a mate of its own species; and even supposing it did, there is no reason to believe the young of that bird would be destitute of its native notes; for if nestling birds have no innate notes peculiar to the species, and their song is only learned from the parent bird, how are we to account for the invariable note each species possesses, when it happens that two different species are bred up in the same bush, or in one very contiguous, or when hatched or fostered by a different species.

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