SNIPE, AND SNIPE-SHOOTING. 247 



getting over it. By having the boat, you will be enabled 

 to outmaneuver another shooter not so far-sighted as 

 yourself; and while he is laboriously toiling around the 

 heads of the streams, you will be getting the cream of 

 the sport. 



Although, as a rule, the birds will be well out on the 

 meadows, the rule, like many others, has its exceptions. 

 Consequently, if you do not find so many birds there as 

 you think are in the neighborhood, turn your atten- 

 tion to the sides of the meadows. Never neglect to work 

 over small wet spots on the dryer and higher parts of 

 the ground. Spots which may seem, to the novice, too 

 small to be worth investigating, are often found to hold 

 birds. I have found and flushed from one to five birds 

 out of little wet spots not more than five feet square, and 

 all such places are worth looking through. 



Never hurry over your ground in snipe-shooting. 

 The snipe being but a small bird, and one of weak scent, 

 as compared with the grouse or the quail, you should 

 give your dog, or dogs, every chance to locate the game. 

 Owing to the constant evaporation going on from the 

 moist ground on which they are found, snipe leave little 

 or no foot-scent. From learning to feel in the air for the 

 body-scent, your setter or pointer will get the correct 

 habit of working with a high head. He will learn the 

 absolute necessity of turning to investigate the very 

 faintest indication of the presence of his game, and from 

 this, and from learning to work down- wind from the gun, 

 he will, when once he has become a fine dog on snipe, 

 become all the quicker a crack dog on game of stronger 

 scent. I am well aware that Southern and Western 

 sportsmen argue the very reverse of this. I think I 

 understand their position fully, and it is this: With 

 them, snipe are so plentiful, and so many of them are 

 found near together, that in the mere matter of making 



