68 BAY-SNIPE SHOOTING. 
patience, much experience, and great qualities of 
mind and body; and few are the sportsmen who ever 
deserve the compliment paid by old Paulus Enos of 
Quogue, when he remarked, “ Colonel P. is a werry 
destructive man—a werry destructive man in a flock 
of birds.” 
It is true that quail-shooting is almost a certainty ; 
and day after day of fair weather, with well-trained 
animals and good marksmen, will produce nearly the 
same average, so that an entire failure will be almost 
impossible; whereas, with bay-snipe everything, in 
the first instance, depends upon the flight; and if 
there are no birds, the result must be a total blank ; 
but when the season is propitious—and this can be 
determined by the experienced sportsman with tole- 
rable accuracy—the sport is prodigious, and the 
number of shots enormous. 
Nor is it so easy to kill the gentle game that 
approaches the decoys with such entire confidence, 
and often at so moderate a pace. The upland sports- 
man, who can cover the quail through the thick 
scrub-oaks, or the woodcock in the dense foliage of 
the shady swamp, and send his charge after them 
with astonishing precision, and who will expect easy 
work with the bay-snipe, will find himself wonder- 
fully bothered by their curious motions and irre- 
gular flight, till he has acquired the knack of anti- 
cipating their intentions. He will learn that their 
speed is irregular; that while at times they will 
hang almost motionless in the air, at others they will 
dart past at the rate of a hundred miles an hour; 
