COMMON SNIPE. 323 
the river Bure, near Yarmouth, and many others were 
found at Harlham, Heigham, and Markshall, and even 
near the Foundry Bridge within the bounds of this 
city. On the broads they were described as appear- 
ing in immense “ wisps,”—“ hundreds in a lump” as 
one marshman described them. Again in 1867, after 
severe rime frosts, between the 26th and 30th of 
November, I counted over thirty couples of snipes in 
our fish-market, including four couple of jacks, all of 
which had been brought up to Norwich in one day, and 
a man who had shot the chief portion of them, stated 
that they had been killed on the Bramerton marshes, 
where he believed there were hundreds, as he had 
never before seen anything like such numbers.* Marsh- 
men also have told me at different times, of snipes 
sitting in large “wisps” on the broads during a white 
frost or in snowy weather, crowding together in bunches 
on the broken down reeds, and affording a rare chance for 
a big gun.t The great difficulty of observing a snipe on 
the ground amongst the coarse herbage, is known to all 
sportsmen, but from long habit our broadmen are so 
quick sighted, that it is not unusual for them to distin- 
from inundation, afford good lying for the snipes when the dense 
growth of sedge and other coarse herbage has been mown in 
autumn, and afford very good sport at times; the bag including 
rails and water-hens as well as snipes. 
* It should be here mentioned, also, that on the Ist of 
December, within a day or two of the time these snipes appeared, 
our coast was visited by a fearful gale from the north-east, 
causing an almost unprecedented high tide at Yarmouth, and a 
consequent flood over the whole of that neighbourhood; which 
resulted in great damage to property and loss of life at sea. The 
weather had previously been unusually wet with much fog and 
occasional storms of hail and snow. 
+ It was probably under such circumstances that, as related 
by Daniel in his “ Rural Sports,” the Duke of Marlborough’s game- 
keeper once killed twenty-two snipes at one shot. 
272 
