Habits and Habitat of Snipe. 1 65 



possible. When In position I raised my gun 

 as a signal and came to the " ready," deter- 

 mined to do or die, meaning, if necessary or 

 possible, to fire into the brown of the mighty 

 rush of snipe I expected. Oh, the agony of 

 that next quarter of an hour ! The birds 

 lay like dead things before my advancing 

 driver. One by one they rose, fifteen yards 

 in front of him ; but they came not nigh me, 

 turning instead, with devilish cunning, back 

 over his gunless person. In a short time I 

 could stand it no longer, and, waving to him 

 to stop, advanced myself into the bog. In an 

 instant, before a shot was fired, two thousand 

 birds were up and away. I got off two 

 barrels, killing a right and left, but not another 

 bird did we put up from that place. Many 

 times subsequently did we try that drive in 

 the course of the old round of experiments, 

 with varying, but never even moderate, suc- 

 cess ; and to this day I confess myself 

 thoroughly defeated by those two acres of 

 quaggy ground and their teeming inhab- 

 itants. 



