SNIPE SHOOTING. 73 



shooting season in Canada I have killed as large snipe as 

 I have ever seen. Audubon asserts that there is a differ- 

 ence between the notes of the two birds, but this I was 

 never able to distinguish, whether as regards the shrill 

 cry or the bleating noise made in the breeding season, 

 although I have heard many hundreds on both sides of 

 the Atlantic. Numbers hatch in the lake districts of 

 Canada, selecting dry spots for the nests in the vicinity 

 of the marshes and swamps. The young birds commence 

 to fly in July. But the Canadian snipe-shooter does not 

 rely altogether upon these birds. Numbers of snipe that 

 breed much farther north in remote and inaccessible 

 swamps visit the snipe grounds of Canada West in their 

 southern migrations. These migratory birds are some- 

 times found by the sportsmen in great numbers after a 

 severe north-easter in the month of October. The Ameri- 

 can snipe is a much hardier bird than the American 

 woodcock, and its summer range is much farther north. 

 In Newfoundland, where there are no cock, there are 

 plenty of snipe. The American snipe dislikes a grassy 

 bottom, and is particularly partial to soft oozy places, in 

 which the shooter sinks to the knee in a clinging and not 

 over-fragrant black mud. I have often seen them in 

 little muddy islands, in lakes, and along the edges of 

 creeks, where there was positively not a blade of cover ; 

 but even in these exposed situations they lie closer than 

 English snipe as a general rule. Their backs being just 

 the shade of the mud enables them to escape observa- 

 tion. The best dog for snipe shooting in Canada, as else- 

 where, is a steady old setter, but close-hunting spaniels 

 answer very well, and whatever dog is used it is almost 



