1 62 A Book of the Snipe. 



its mind to give you another shot. Occa- 

 sionally, moreover, the snipe will be in a 

 much more decided humour, scuttling off 

 best pace at once» on a bee - line for the 

 horizon, and dispensing altogether with 

 aerial calisthenics. Other days, they will 

 rise just out of shot time after time, and 

 fly but a foot or two before alighting, — a 

 most irritating procedure ; other days, again 

 (rare and red - letter days these), they will 

 wait to be kicked up, and yet other days 

 they will allow you to pass them, and then 

 bounce up behind you so constantly that 

 you feel that the only way to negotiate 

 them must be that which was once urged 

 upon me by an Irish gossoon, — to walk the 

 moors backwards ! 



It is all a matter of — I was about to say 

 of weather, but the more I think of it the 

 more impossible it seems to lay down any 

 laws at all as to what it is a matter of. It 

 is scarcely even a matter of experience, for 

 snipe will give the lie time after time even 

 to this comprehensive possession. In this 



