62 A Book of the Snipe. 



I shall have to refer to it again, for it is 

 worth while knowing the proper way to 

 treat such a splendid preserve, which in 

 some weathers seems to act as a magnet to 

 every bird in the neighbourhood. 



Following the stream, which turns to- 

 wards the hills again as it flows through 

 the old river-bed, we begin to flush in twos 

 and threes a good many of the birds that 

 we marked down from the wisp. It is 

 rather curious sort of ground here. Down 

 the middle of the depression runs a low 

 bank made of peats, close under which 

 flows the stream. It is difficult to see the 

 use of a bank in such a place ; most probably 

 it is an ancient boundary between two adjacent 

 properties. Now, however, it is very con- 

 venient for another purpose, for from the 

 top of it a gun can command the whole 

 width of the two very different sorts of 

 ground that lie on either side of it — on the 

 stream side grass and rushes, on the other 

 a strip of those knobby tussocks that we 

 have met before. We pick our way easily 



