SNIPE SHOOTING. 105 
by mopping the perspiration from his forehead, or mak- 
ing a misstep, wrenching his limbs. The trouble with 
you, Ned, is on those long cross-shots ; you bang away 
quickly, make no time allowance for distance between 
you and the bird—shoot away ; if you hit it, all right; if 
you don’t, you secretly curse your luck, or blame the 
gun, when you, and you alone, are to blame. At those 
long cross-shots, the same as I saw you miss to-day, you 
ought to have fired at least from—My! How the time 
has slipped by. Here we are at your gate. Some day 
Don and I are going to take you with us after ducks. 
Then I will demonstrate to you that your snap shoot 
ing won’t do at long range— 
If at forty yards a foot seems too far ahead, 
Make it two, keep your gun moving, and the bird falls dead. 
Excuse this poetry, but I can assure you it’s not 
only spontaneous, but original. Good-bye,” and Ned, 
with one-half the snipe we killed, passed quickly in the 
gate,and ITwent home. Thus passed one day among 
the snipe. 
Does the reader think Ned enjoyed this hunt? Can- 
not you recall many incidents in your life similar to 
this? When cold winter has passed silently away, and 
warm welcome spring has returned, when birds are fill- 
ing the air with melody, streams flowing joyously along 
freed from their ice-bound covering, buds are swelling, 
grass in tiny sprouts peeping inquiringly through the 
brown earth? The hunter is a generous soul, he loves 
nature in all her many changes, and delights to wander 
admiring her beauties in her manifold forms. He feels 
as Milton did, when he expressed himself so beautifully 
in these words : 
