BREAKING AND HANDLING. 299 



and birds plentiful, the flushed birds taking a short flight 

 and dropping back of the shooter; others come in to feed. 

 They are the most uncertain of game birds in their habits, 

 even in settled weather. Grounds which contained large 

 numbers one day may have but one or two birds the next, 

 or none at all. At times they are the easiest of birds for 

 the dog to point, or the sportsman to kill; at other time? 

 they are incomparably difficult. They change their feeding 

 grounds frequently without any appreciable cause, sometimes 

 favoring the meadows, at others the wet uplands, plowed 

 fields, or margins of small ponds. 



The snipe shooting of the North is a very insignificant 

 affair when compared to that of Louisiana and Texas. It 

 is near their Southern migratory limit and they congregate 

 in vast numbers, and the large prairies and fields afford 

 ample feeding grounds for them. After the heavy fall 

 rains, oftentimes in favorable seasons they are so plentiful 

 that shooting ceases to be a pleasure. Forty or fifty snipe 

 in a day to one gun is a common affair, and one hundred 

 are not uncommon. There are authenticated instances 

 where three or four hundred have been killed by one 

 shooter in one day, he having two guns, which he shot 

 alternately when one became overheated. This kind of 

 slaughter required two or three assistants, one to carry the 

 cartridges and spare gun, others to retrieve the birds. 

 When the birds are so plentiful, a dog is wholly useless 

 except as a retriever. The shooter simply walks along and 

 will have more shooting then than he can attend to, if he 

 happens to be favored with a good day. The fall shooting 

 lasts several weeks. 



In the winter, there is more or less shooting that is 



there considered very poor, but would pass for excellent at 



any season in. the North. But it should be remembered 



that the winters in that section are very mild and open, the 



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