1 82 GAME-BIRDS AT HOME. 



and felt more proud of that little bird than many 

 a man does over a moose. Why it is, no man 

 can tell. And how much would he gain if he 

 could? 



There are those who say this snipe is compara- 

 tively easy to hit when once you have learned 

 the secret of its flight. But who learns it until 

 with the old dog he hunts only in dreams before 

 the fire? Although generally found on open 

 ground, this bird does not confine himself to it, 

 and in any sort of cover he can make it highly 

 interesting for the quickest and surest shots. 

 Do you not remember how, amid the wild rice 

 left by the receding water, you heard the defiant 

 Scaipe so hard to locate in time, and caught 

 sight of the gray just as it vanished on a new 

 tack through the tall stalks? That was not so 

 easy to hit, was it? How about the time you 

 poured vain thunder through the cat-tails around 

 the muddy shore from which the snipe had just 

 sprung, and above the edge of the smoke saw the 

 intended victim careering aloft in a direction 

 entirely different from the one on which it started? 

 Did you ever, on the boggy meadow partly cov- 

 ered with brush higher than your head, see this 



