Habits and Habitat of Snipe. 193 



other hand, you are keen, careful, and In 

 sound health, you may enjoy its delights up 

 to the very end of a long life, of which perhaps 

 it will, on looking back, have formed no small 

 part of the pleasure. 



But I digress. The reader will perhaps 

 pardon the crime when he reflects that he 

 has not only to think of the snipe in times 

 of frost or flood, but that their human pursuer 

 is also greatly concerned in the effects of these 

 chilly phenomena on himself. There is no 

 sadder spectacle In the world than that of a 

 man whose love for any particular sport has 

 outlasted his health and strength. Nor will 

 it lighten the sorrow of such a one to think 

 that he migrht still be treadinof the moors and 

 marshes, or still perhaps be swinging twenty 

 foot of greenheart over his favourite pools in 

 the far north, or doing anything else that it 

 almost breaks his heart not to be able to do 

 now, if he had only been a little more care- 

 ful of himself in his walking and wading 

 and taking his ease. And now back to 

 business. 



