286 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



with unchanged dimatic conditions, the birds spirited 

 themselves off in the mysterious fashion known to the 

 genus. 



Here and there we came on solitary specimens 

 of the great snipe. His sluggish manner of rising, 

 bereft of the tricky darts and turns with which the 

 common snipe starts to fly, marked him out an easy 

 victim. The great snipe is scarce in the Kouban 

 district, but nests throughout the basal pine zone of 

 the lower Caucasus. 



The edges of shallow quagmires streaking off into 

 drier lands, where thick coarse grasses grew, were the 

 favourite feeding-grounds, and a little frill of probings 

 always surrounded the large-leafed plant beloved of the 

 bison. I suppose the moisture and shade attracted the 

 worms. One bog in particular, where this plant grew 

 plentifully, had always its couple of snipe. They seemed 

 to reincarnate themselves. We ate them for supper, 

 and there they were in the marsh again next morning, 

 ready and waiting to give us another fly for our money. 



Of course, in the uncertainty lies the witchery of 

 snipe shooting. There's such an unusually strong 

 element of chance and lottery in it, something so 

 irresistibly provoking in the methods of the tiny birds 

 urging you on to " do your damndest," as I once 

 heard a provoked sportsman feelingly describe the 

 position, as they flicker through all the laws and rules 

 and statistics known. He is a wit-sharpener, that little 

 atom, fastest of fliers. What ways and moods, and 

 eccentricities and lures and beguilements he has, too ! 

 Whether to take him as he rises, with his intricate up 



