Bogtrotting, etc. 97 



the foot very often nearly, and occasionally 

 really, pulls off a tightly-laced boot. If good 

 at the game, these cannot be traversed too 

 quickly and glidingly, or on the contrary too 

 slowly and carefully if the shooter is one of the 

 steadfast order. They will nearly always bear 

 even a heavy man if he sets about them the 

 right way, and, it may be added, do not often 

 contain very many snipe. Then there are 

 the long tussock -studded strips, previously 

 described, that so often fringe the sides of 

 brooks, each tussock capable of sustaining a 

 ton weight, but the intervals between them 

 unutterably rotten and occasionally very deep. 

 Nature seems to have designed this species 

 of snipe-ground as a sort of practical joke, 

 for it will constantly be found that the tufts 

 have been placed at exactly the distance of 

 an over-long stride from one to the other, — a 

 most exasperating interval for a man on tenter- 

 hooks of expectation as regards his quarry. 

 Such are in fact the most difficult of any to 

 negotiate, but perhaps the only ones which 

 practice will make noticeably easier to traverse 



