20 A Book of the Snipe. 



However, the time is not yet, thank good- 

 ness, when every flock of snipe from the 

 North, prospecting for comfortable winter 

 quarters, will be forced to stream away 

 from these shores, their long noses turned 

 up in disgust at the universal alternation 

 of machinery and cabbage - garden, where 

 once the only sign of man was the infre- 

 quent and welcome spade of the peat-cutter. 

 Great Britain is not yet all reclaimed, nor 

 is it likely to be during our lifetime, so 

 away with dismal thoughts into the Eivig- 

 keit, in which a snipe will be as curious a 

 relic to our volapuk - speaking posterity as 

 the Great Auk is to us, and a book on 

 how to shoot it prized as a quaint treatise 

 on a forgotten sport. Carpe diem; let us 

 go out shooting to-day anyhow, and if we 

 see a signal-box defiling the spot which last 

 year was a certain He for a jack, we will take 

 shares in the railway company, and be off 

 with the dividends to shoot snipe in other 

 climes. 



