380 Notes on Sport and Travel iv 



marsh ; I lost many a snipe from looking down at 

 them. There was one smart young fellow with a 

 stripe of the most vivid apple green down his back, 

 who delighted me much. Why do they all, when 

 they see me, put their hands over their heads, and 

 after making believe to dive, sit down and look at 

 me as much as to say ' You can't do that ' ? There 

 are worse noises in the world than the cosy crooning 

 conversation by day of well-bred frogs ; they don't 

 croak, they are only a little hoarse from sitting in 

 the damp, like the member of the village choir when 

 he had to sing a bass part, — a thought husky, as it 

 were. At night it is another thing, and I question 

 whether the frogs who croak at night are not another 

 set, — a rowdy Haymarkety, in-office-all-day-and-out- 

 for-a-lark sort of persons ; but by day, and here, 

 the frogs are aristocratic frogs and have manners 

 corresponding. Bless me ! if that delicate yellow 

 thing with the spots was a dowager Portuguese 

 princess, she could not look at me with more icy 

 impertinence, or hold her chin higher in the air to 

 show her yellow throat puffed up with windy 

 importance. It seemed quite wrong to be snipe- 

 shooting in the midst of all this life and sunshine, 

 so unlike the cold steel-gray sky and rustling, 

 lifeless, half-frozen sedges in which one kills friend 

 Scape at home. Nevertheless we have killed them ; 

 put them out on the sand, pretty brutes, — how ex- 

 quisitely marked are those feathers on the back, 

 that tender creamy brown ! If you want feathers 



