THE SNIPE AND SNIPE-SHOOTING. 137 



A great many people go up-wind when after 

 snipe, believing that it gives a much better chance 

 to the dogs. I always go down-wind, and use no 

 dog at all, except for retrieving purposes. There 

 is no need to use a dog to find snipe on good 

 snipe-ground at the proper times and seasons. 

 The bird always rises against the wind, and flies 

 up-wind or across it, making zigzags when he 

 first gets under way. Now, if you are to wind- 

 ward of the bird when it rises, it is nearly cer- 

 tain to give you a side shot. As I remarked 

 before, when they first come from the south in the 

 spring, the snipe are wild. Their numbers are very 

 large, but the ground- is nearly bare, the grass 

 having but just started. Four or five will get 

 up together, and sometimes as many as twenty, 

 all uttering the shrill squeak which they make on 

 taking wing. The rich bottoms, low, marshy 

 ground around sloughs, and wet corn-fields, are 

 good places to look for snipe. As they eat the 

 plump worms and other rich food which they find 

 in abundance in the loamy soils and black, vege- 

 table deposits, the snipe become fat, and then 

 they lie close and well. I never found any diffi- 

 culty in shooting them then. Later on in the 

 season still they get very fat, and will hardly rise 



