196 TEN YEAES IN SWEDEN. 



birds in our meadows ; and a friend of mine this year took 

 two nests near Gothenburg. Upsala is a great place for the 

 double snipe, and they must breed there in considerable 

 numbers, if it is true as we read, that in one May very 

 ately, eight hundred of these birds were sold from this dis- 

 trict. As these were all shot on their playing, grounds just 

 before laying, we need not much wonder that they are yearly 

 becoming scarcer. The best afternoon's shooting I ever had 

 was in a rough tussocky meadow not far from this. I bagged 

 seventeen ; but I believe Mr. Lloyd has done more in the 

 Gothenburg marshes, where even now there is at times a 

 tolerable sprinkling. They come down to us the earliest of 

 all the snipes, and leave the soonest. I generally expect to 

 find the first about the middle of August, and I never kill 

 one after September. They do not lie in the wet like other 

 snipes ; dry tussocky meadows, but not far from the water, 

 is the place to look for the double snipe. I think they are a 

 very local bird. I may here remark that all the snipes on 

 their downward passage follow the course of the large rivers, 

 by the sides of which there is usually capital snipe 

 ground. Every one knows how uncertain are their habits 

 here to-day, and gone to-morrow. If a man had the luck 

 to fall in with a heavy wisp, I dare say he would make a great 

 bag here. I have two very good grounds in my neigh- 

 bourhood, but I never shot ten couple in the day on either 

 of them, though, with a good dog, I dare say that might be 

 done without much trouble ; but whenever I go, I can always 

 make sure of five or six couple, and I could shoot both 

 grounds, I fancy, on alternate days, from the beginning of 

 September, to the middle of October, with the same results. 



The snipe in Sweden are very local, and lie much in 

 small wisps, and rise together. I know one tract of splendid 

 meadow, about five English miles long, every yard of which 

 looks excellent snipe ground ; but, strange to say, there are 

 only about five places on all this ground where the snipe lie. 

 They appear to lie in much wetter ground here than in Eng- 

 land, probably on account of the warmth of the season when 

 we shoot them. The common snipe begin to draw down 



