As birders will testify, snipe can be difficult to locate. In the case of Painted Snipe it can take decades to satisfy yourself that the darned things actually exist.
Anyhow, have been reading the work of that doyen of conservative journalism Hunter S. Thompson and came across the following: “Police have compared their [the Hell’s Angels] guile to that of the snipe, a wily bird that many have seen but few have trapped. This is because the snipe has the ability to transform itself, when facing capture, into something entirely different. The only other animals capable of this are the werewolf and the Hell’s Angels, which have many traits in common. The physical resemblance is obvious. ... .”
If anyone knows of any references to the snipe’s alleged transmogrification I’d be interested to know in the interests of ornithological mythology.
John K. Layton
