SNIPE 289 



often tells of a shot that had travelled one hundred and fifty 

 yards, and many such details dear to the sportsman. 



When the alder- carrs are embrowned in October, the 

 migrant snipe come over in company with the woodcock, 

 both carried on the same propitious breezes. And at times, 

 if you be wandering on the wind-sculptured dunes, you may 

 see these birds arrive and drop dazed on the wet beaches, 

 giddy with fatigue after their long flighting. 



A strange bird is the snipe at such seasons. One day 

 the marshlands will be alive with birds, and the next they 

 will have gone ; the floods were out, or the wind blew too 

 keenly from the east. And the way they vary in plumpness 

 is astonishing; one week they will be as fat as a capon, 

 another a mere feather-bag of bones. 



The Jack-Snipe, or Half-Snipe, 



Is a splendid little fellow on toast, especially when he weighs 

 four ounces, as I have record. He, too, comes to us in 

 frosted October, spending the winter and spring, staying 

 on until the hawthorn hedges are green with the new leaves, 

 and rarely all the year round. The half-snipe is best for 

 the toast just before he goes in the spring ; then a good fat 

 hen, which is the larger bird, is sabroso. But he is shy, 

 and is not fond of betraying his whereabouts, though he 

 scapes when flushed ; indeed, he will allow you to step 

 within an inch of his little body ere he will budge — indeed, 

 a knowing fenman once caught one with his hat, so that 

 without a dog many a gunner walks over him time after time. 

 So the little fellow is wise to draw himself down to the 

 ground, lay his back out straight, his head down, and sit as 

 if he were asleep. Yet he keeps a sharp eye on you ; and 

 if he deign to fly, his course is short — he scon drops into 

 rushy cover. 



He dearly loves a floating hover by the mere-side — a land 

 that rises and falls with the tidal ebb and flow — a place that 



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