242 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



most fagged out at night, or which of them will have the 

 most birds to show. No, no, reader, don't try the snipe 

 in windy weather, for you will find ' ' the game is not 

 worth the candle." 



Aside from the knack of hitting them, snipe are not 

 hard to kill. One or two pellets of shot will bring them 

 down, and it is seldom that they fly far if hit. 



After advising caution in approaching a hit snipe, 

 which has been marked down, Forester says that he has 

 "seen a wounded one, after being marked down to a 

 square yard of ground, get away, and this after the 

 ground had been beaten over by a brace of capital dogs, 

 and as many men." Now if any man ever knew just 

 what constituted a brace of " capital dogs," he did; but 

 I can not imagine how a ' ' brace of capital dogs ' ' could go 

 up to within a yard of a wounded snipe and not wind it, 

 when it is a well-known fact that dead or wounded birds 

 are readily located by dogs, and this, too, when they have 

 failed to scent unhurt birds in the immediate vicinity. 

 Possibly I may have been more than usually fortunate 

 in my experience, but I can say truly that, in all the 

 years I have shot, I have lost but one dead or wounded 

 snipe. It is true I was attended on that occasion by 

 dogs which were excellent at retrieving, an accomplish- 

 ment which I seem to have an inborn knack of teaching; 

 but had I known then, as I now know, that snipe can 

 swim well for short distances, I am confident that I 

 should not have lost even that one bird. I will give the 

 incident here: It was in the month of April, before I had 

 realized the wrong of shooting snipe in spring. I was, at 

 the time, walking along the edge of one of a series of 

 high knolls, separated by water on three sides. Sud- 

 denly, in front of me, and not over thirty yards away, two 

 birds arose. One turned to the right, and it was instantly 

 killed; the other, bearing away to my left, and flying 



