WILSON'S SNIPE. 185 



able that, incredible as it will seem, I must 

 tell it. 



One of my dearest hunting-companions there 

 had long looked with pitying eye on my de- 

 pravity in shooting so small a bird as Wilson's 

 snipe. But once about mid-day, when ducks were 

 slow in coming and he was tired of smoking, he 

 left me for a while. I soon heard him shoot 

 about a quarter of a mile away, and within the 

 next thirty minutes he shot about a dozen times 

 at the same place. In considerably less than an 

 hour from the time he left he tossed me a bunch 

 of snipe, remarking, with all the coolness imagi- 

 nable, " I thought I would have to show you how 

 to do it." I was astounded to find twenty-seven 

 snipe in the bunch, and all still warm. There 

 was no one about from whom he could have got 

 them. There were indeed times when one could 

 average a shot a minute with a breech-loader for 

 several minutes. But my friend was using a 

 muzzle-loader. Allowing for instantaneous load- 

 ing and no missing, how did he pick them up in 

 that time? He sat and smoked long in silence, 

 eying me through the smoke and treating the 

 performance as a matter of course for him. I 



