COMMON SNIPE. 323 



the river Bure, near Yarmouth, and many others were 

 found at Earlham, Heigham, and Markshall, and even 

 near the Foundry Bridge within the bounds of this 

 city. On the broads they were described as appear- 

 ing in immense "wisps," "hundreds in a lump" as 

 one marshman described them. Again in 1867, after 

 severe rime frosts, between the 26th and 30th of 

 November, I counted over thirty couples of snipes in 

 our fish-market, including four couple of jacks, all of 

 which had been brought up to Norwich in one day, and 

 a man who had shot the chief portion of them, stated 

 that they had been killed on the Bramerton marshes, 

 where he believed there were hundreds, as he had 

 never before seen anything like such numbers.* Marsh- 

 men also have told me at different times, of snipes 

 sitting in large " wisps " on the broads during a white 

 frost or in snowy weather, crowding together in bunches 

 on the broken down reeds, and affording a rare chance for 

 a big gun.f The great difficulty of observing a snipe on 

 the ground amongst the coarse herbage, is known to all 

 sportsmen, but from long habit our broadmen are so 

 quick sighted, that it is not unusual for them to distin- 



from inundation, afford good lying for the snipes when the dense 

 growth of sedge and other coarse herbage has been mown in 

 autumn, and afford very good sport at times ; the bag including 

 rails and water-hens as well as snipes. 



* It should be here mentioned, also, that on the 1st of 

 December, within a day or two of the time these snipes appeared, 

 our coast was visited by a fearful gale from the north-east, 

 causing an almost unprecedented high tide at Yarmouth, and a 

 consequent flood over the whole of that neighbourhood; which 

 resulted in great damage to property and loss of life at sea. The 

 weather had previously been unusually wet with much fog and 

 occasional storms of hail and snow. 



f It was probably under such circumstances that, as related 

 by Daniel in his " Rural Sports," the Duke of Marlborough's game- 

 keeper once killed twenty-two snipes at one shot. 

 2 T 2 



