SNIPE. 429 



Unless there is a high wind, or the birds have been very 

 much persecuted, they fly off, four times out of five, more or 

 less rapidly in a direct line, and near the ground. On a 

 bright, warm, quiet day, with a gentle breeze, they afford the 

 sportsman more easy shots in succession than any other game- 

 bird of New England, and, indeed, frequently flutter off so 

 indolently that to shoot them is a mere bagatelle even for the 

 most indifferent shot. Snipe usually start up the wind, and, if 

 the wind is high, often dart away fifteen or twenty yards, gradu- 

 ally ascending, and then either fall away gradually before the 

 wind till they cross it with a circumlinear flight, or, by 

 throwing up one wing, make a sharp angle in the direction of 

 their motion. But the abrupt change of direction is not com- 

 mon, and a rapid repetition of it rare. Sometimes, again, they 

 go off up wind, bearing first more strougl}^ on one wing than 

 on the other, thus producing a sinuous motion in regular 

 curves, varying a few feet on either side from a right line, 

 and crossing it, perhaps, every thirty or forty feet. Some- 

 times, again, they start by a rapid and almost perpendicular 

 ascent, and then sag away from the wind. The mode of flight 

 depends of course on certain conditions : the state of the at- 

 mosphere, the force of the wind, the nature of the ground, 

 the season, the bird's condition of body, etc. Snipe almost 

 invariably fly into the wind ; if a bunch of high reeds, a fence, 

 or a line of trees, is in the way, or if for any other reason 

 they ascend rapidly, they must afterward either fall off, flying 

 across or down the wind, or else tack uj) into it to get 

 headway. Since no bird can with rapidity start from a sta- 

 tionary position in the air against a strong wind, the more 

 nearly stationary that a bird is, so is his difficulty the greater. 

 If, on the contrary, there are no obstructions, and the birds 

 jump at once from the ground into the teeth of the wind, 

 taking a nearly horizontal line, there is less likelihood of their 

 tacking or falling away, for it is not so necessary. In spring, 

 the shooting is often more difficult, for the birds are light 

 weights, and in great training when they reach us. They are 

 both migrating and mating, and often seem to be in a state 

 of restless activity and nervous excitement, which makes it 



