WILSON'S SNIPE. 183 



bird spring from behind a bush just thin enough 

 to give a gHmpse of gray, and then twist so 

 quickly that your finger could not resist in time 

 the impulse to pull off the gun on the old line? 

 And what did you think when the next one rose 

 on open ground and in a twinkling whipped be- 

 hind such a bush, with the flame streaming, as 

 you thought, across its path, yet over the top of 

 the bush it rose triumphant against the blue sky 

 at a rate of speed that left the shot from your 

 second barrel behind it? 



The best shooting I have ever seen on this 



bird was in 1864 on the shores of Senachwine 



Lake in Illinois. The water was slowly receding 



after an early autumn rise, leaving along the 



water's edge a strip some twenty feet wide, in the 



right stage of moisture to make plenty of worms 



for this ravenous little feeder, while the grass that 



followed the falling water made him the best of 



cover. On the upper edge of this the ground 



was dry enough for good walking. The numbers 



of snipe concentrated on that strip, which was 



several miles long, seem now quite incredible. 



But there was then only one person in Marshall 



County who ever shot at them, and he but little. 



