COMMON SNIPE... 325 
of enormous flocks visiting us from temporary causes, and 
we have fortunately a few records of the numbers killed 
on such occasions; but these are, of course, no guide as 
to the bags then made in any average season. From 
conversations I have had, however, with several old 
sportsmen on this point, I believe that where forty or 
fifty years ago, twenty, or five and twenty, couples 
a day was reckoned good sport (occasionally as large 
a number falling to one gun) at the present time, even 
on the best ground, ten couples would be reckoned 
a good bag and four or five an average quantity. At 
Surlingham, Mr. Robert Pratt, who has had considerable 
experience in such matters, assures me that although 
during the last few years the broad and surrounding 
marshes have been carefully preserved, they have 
nothing like the amount of snipes in the autumn and 
winter that they had fifteen or twenty years ago. This 
he attributes to certain tidal influences caused by the 
opening out of Yarmouth Bridge, by which the waters 
rise and fall more rapidly than they used to do, 
thus suddenly flooding out the snipes with an excep- 
tionally high tide, and again receding too soon to leave 
the marshes in a fit state for feeding. This also applies 
more or less to other localities where, prior to the 
drainage system of the present day, the very gradual 
subsidence of the waters, after a wet season, left the 
marshes in the most attractive condition for snipes; 
whilst many of them have now become too dense and 
mossy. In October, 1852, after repeated visits with but 
small results, a good shot bagged eighteen couples in 
one day on Surlingham broad, but since then the largest 
bag I know of, on the same ground, has been twelve 
and a half couples, and between five and six is con- 
sidered fair shooting. In the season of 1862-3 over 
four hundred snipes were killed to an average of three 
guns, about Surlingham and Rockland; and still more 
