IN IRELAND. 241 



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

 between breakfast and dinner, fifty-seven couple 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 are 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 portion 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 Ruff 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 Ruff (Bntshanc, Sw.; Bruushane, Dan.; Machetes 

 pnyna,?, Linn.) was a summer visitant to the Ronnum 

 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 



R 



