IN IRELAND. 211 



Some years ago, however, a party from thence bagged; 

 between breakfast and dinner, fifty-seven conple of the 

 Solitary and Common Snipe; and in 1850 Lieut. 

 Carl von Qvanten and the Count Alfred Piper — so I 

 was told by the latter — shot in one day about the like 

 number ; and of these also a considerable portion were 

 Solitary Snipes. 



Good Snipe-grounds in Scandinavia being something 

 like legion, it is impossible for me to enumerate them. 

 By all accounts the best are in the island of Gotland, 

 where birds ai-e very plentiful and the bogs boundless; 

 but never having been there myself, I can, of course, 

 only speak from hearsay, which is certainly good for 

 very little. 



After all, however, what is the Snipe-shooting in 

 ■ Scandinavia, as compared with that in our own fens, and 

 in Ireland, where, during a j)ortio)i of the winter 1821-2, 

 I bagged to my own gun, independently of 207 couple 

 of Woodcocks, and some other things, 655 couple of 

 Snipe. With very few exceptions, these were all Common 

 Snipe ; for in those days I rarely shot at Jacks. Had I, as 

 a rule, done so, the number specified above would very 

 probably have been nearly doubled. 



Though the Ruff does not come under the designation 

 of a game bird, yet, as it is not seldom taken by certain 

 Swedish sportsmen for a Snipe, and bagged as such, I 

 venture to give the RutT a place in this volume, the rather 

 as my friend Mr. Wolf has favoured me with the annexed 

 drawing, which very vividly depicts the peculiar habit of 

 these birds. 



The l^uE {Brushane, Sw.; Bruushane, Dan. ; Maclietes 

 pugnax, Linn.) was a summer visitant to the E,onnum 

 country, and a few, it was believed, bred in our marshes. 

 This bird, at that season, is very generally distributed 

 throughout Scandinavia, from Scania to Northern 



B 



