OF NEW ENGLAND. 409 
completed their zigzags and begin their steady flight. The 
beginner, deeply impressed by these statements, his mind 
filled with the idea that the flight of the Snipe is much like 
that of a tortuous lightning flash through a cloud, sets out, 
and, adopting one or the other of these absurd rules, is sure to 
miss. Inasmuch as the Snipe, five times out of six, in most 
weather does not spring at all, to fire at the height of the first 
spring means to the beginner to fire as soon as he can, that is 
as much as possible before he gets his aim. On the other hand, 
to wait until the bird is done with zigzagging necessitates 
waiting until he has begun zigzagging, and, as he generally does 
not zigzag at all, this involves wailing some time. From the 
expression, ‘‘ zigzag flight,” would not the natural impression 
be that the bird kept darting rapidly with sharp, quick, short 
turns from side to side? That such is the Snipe’s usual flight 
is certainly not true, though it is undoubtedly often rapid and 
sometimes eccentric. The author’s experience is for these 
days of rapid travel limited, but after shooting snipe at dif- 
ferent seasons in the British Provinces, in Maine, Massachu- 
setts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and North 
Carolina, he ventures to assert that they almost never “‘zigzag” 
in their flight. 
Unless there is a high wind, or the birds have been very much 
persecuted, they fly off, four times out of five, more or less 
rapidly in a direct line, and near the ground. On a bright, 
warm, quiet day, with a gentle breeze, they afford the sports- 
man more easy shots in succession than any other game-bird 
of New England, and, indeed, frequently flutter off so indo- 
lently that to shoot them is a mere bagatelle even for the most 
indifferent shot. Snipe usually start up the wind, and, if the 
wind is high, often dart away fifteen or twenty yards, gradually 
ascending, and then either fall away gradually before the wind 
till they cross it with a circumlinear flight, or, by throwing up 
one wing, make a sharp angle in the direction of their motion. 
But the abrupt change of direction is not common, and a rapid 
repetition of it rare. Sometimes, again, they go off up wind, 
bearing first more strongly on one wing than on the other, thus 
