How to walk for and shoot Snipe. 75 



dozen times in the course of each day's 

 shooting. 



Snipe -ground is so variously constituted 

 that it is impossible to give instructions that 

 will apply in every case as to how it should 

 be negotiated. But it may be broadly stated 

 that whenever possible it is pleasanter, less 

 laborious, and far more profitable to shoot 

 with the wind at your back than to walk 

 against or across it. And this for many 

 reasons. In the first place, snipe, in common 

 with every bird that flies, invariably and of 

 necessity spring from the ground head to 

 wind, "hanging" against it for varying 

 periods, according as it is strong or gentle, 

 before they have obtained sufficient mastery 

 over it to enable them to get themselves 

 under way and their flight under control. 

 Consequently, if you approach them doivn 

 the wind, they not only rise towards you, 

 but for an instant, often only the fraction 

 of a second, — the time, in fact, occupied in 

 converting their upward spring from the 

 ground into actual flight, — they are nearly or 



