SNIPE, AND SNIPE-SHOOTING. 241 



As an illustration of the advantage held by one 

 working with goods dogs over one without a dog, 

 let us suppose that we have two meadows, of twenty 

 acres each in extent, and that on each of these meadows 

 there are distributed forty snipe. Let two men, who are 

 equally good shots, each beat over one of these meadows. 

 To make the test complete, let half a gale of wind be 

 blowing over one meadow, and only a gentle breeze over 

 the other. Suppose one man to be aided by a brace of 

 good snipe-dogs, and the other, who works over the 

 windy meadow, to have no dog, but work on Dr. Lewis' 

 plan, and find the birds himself. Let both begin at the 

 same time; and now mark the inevitable result. The 

 man with the dogs walks quietly down-wind, keeping 

 near the 'center of his ground, and the dogs working to 

 the right and left of him. The dogs will find every bird, 

 and there being but little wind, they will not fly until 

 forced to do so. The shooter need not turn aside, except 

 when his dogs point, and so saves himself much walking; 

 and in an hour, at the most, he has got, or driven off, all 

 the birds on that piece of ground. 



Now turn to the other shooter; doing all of the work 

 himself, he must tramp over the whole ground to find his 

 birds. Be as quiet as he may, he will unavoidably make 

 some noise, and the strong wind behind him carries the 

 sound far in advance of him to warn the birds. It being 

 a strong wind, the birds know they can rise easily and 

 fly fast, and the result is that they do so, oftentimes out 

 of shot. Not having dogs to locate them, the shooter 

 does not know when, where, or how they may flush, and 

 he has to take shots at all sorts of angles, and sees a good, 

 many birds go off. Moreover, to find them all, he must, 

 do from four to six times the tramping done by the other 

 man, and this takes a proportionately greater time. It 

 takes no prophet to tell which of those two men will be 



16 



