FALL JACK-SNIPE SHOOTING 



to feed in, for the summer suns have dried 

 up much of the ground they occupied in the 

 spring months. In some parts of the country 

 there is no shooting except in the spring. In 

 the autumn months these birds linger in the 

 country until sometimes the ice rims the 

 edges of the pools and chill winds sweep 

 across the pastures. But if the grass and 

 reeds afford cover high enough the snipe will 

 skulk in such cover, and many a dozen of 

 splendid, plump birds may be shot when the 

 morning of the day which gave them their 

 quietus was cold and stormy, with ice on the 

 spring holes. But when the sun comes out in 

 the afternoons and the ice melts, they seem 

 to come back, and as long as the ground sof- 

 tens and gives them good feeding, and the 

 cover shelters them from the winds, they 

 linger until the advent of the conquering 

 snows. 



A good dog will not only enable a man 

 to find birds better in the fall, but he can 

 make " doubles " when he has a dog along, 

 trusting to the animal to find all the birds he 

 drops. In high, dense cover, the jack-snipe 

 is a very hard bird to find. Indeed, he is 

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