i8o A Book of the Snipe. 



Even these may fail you in the daytime, 

 unless the frost is severe, for, unless there 

 is good cover handy, snipe will not remain 

 by them in daylight, but may lie up in all 

 sorts of odd places, and flight at night to 

 their feeding-ground. 



There are no occasions when local experi- 

 ence is more valuable to the snipe -shooter 

 than during the various phases of a frost. 

 Snipe are kittle-cattle at the best of times, 

 but at the advent of hard weather their un- 

 certainty baflles even the already little-known 

 laws which govern their movements and their 

 commissariat. The general rule is the per- 

 fectly logical one stated above — i.e., that snipe 

 will avoid frozen ground and resort of neces- 

 sity to spots kept soft by running water or 

 perennial springs. But though there can be 

 no exception to this natural law if snipe are 

 to remain alive, it does not at all follow that a 

 district abounding in both snipe and streams 

 will afford sport in a frost. I know of such 

 places, perfect networks of rivulets and warm 

 quaggy springs, that the first touch of the cold 



