CHAPTER m. 



BAY-SNIPE SHOOTING. 



THE various writers on the different kinds of sport 

 in our country have generally devoted their atten- 

 tion to upland shooting ; to the quail, woodcock, 

 English snipe, ruffed grouse of the hills, dales, and 

 meadows, to the prairie-chicken of the far west, or to 

 the larger game the ducks, geese, and swans of our 

 coast; and the few suggestions to be found in 

 Frank Forester's Field Sports, or Lewis's Ame- 

 rican /Sportsman, are of little assistance in discuss- 

 ing the mode of captm*e of their less fashionable 

 and less marketable brethren called bay-snipe. 

 I shall inevitably make mistakes and omissions. 

 The later works on water-fowl shooting are limited 

 to the consideration of ducks, geese, and brant, 

 as though bay snipe belonged to the upland. But 

 I consider them nearly as much of a water-bird as 

 the black duck, for, like the latter, they are shot 

 mostly at pond holes in the marshes or from sedgy 

 points. 



The birds that are shot along our shores upon the 

 sand-bars or broad salt meadows, or even upon the 

 adjoining fields of upland, are among sportsmen 

 termed bay-birds or bay-snipe; and although includ- 

 ing several distinct varieties, present a general 

 similarity in manners and habits. They are ordi- 



