244 PBAIKIE AND FOEEST. 



unaware that within thirty-six hours' journey of New York 

 they can have such snipe-shooting as is to be enjoyed in no 

 other portion of the globe. 



As to all the haunts of snipe, the visitors must go well 

 prepared with a good supply of waterproof boots, for the 

 walking is always damp, sometimes wet ; also a good stock 

 of flannel clothing will be found indispensable, for at this 

 season the weather is frequently so variable, that although 

 noon may be oppressively warm, sunset and the hour of 

 the tramp home especially if your feet are wet, may be 

 found sufficiently cold to chill the warmest blood. 



In our opinion, there is no kind of field sport in which 

 the breech-loader so plainly shows its superiority over the 

 old muzzle-gun as in snipe shooting. The rapidity with 

 which they can both be loaded and cleaned, dispensing 

 with the ramrod, which is always difficult to handle in cold 

 weather, being able to load without placing the butt on the 

 ground or in the mud, and the non-necessity of using caps, 

 are advantages in all sporting, but in none more decided 

 than in snipe shooting. 



As an estimate of what may be considered a good day's 

 sport in the spring of the year on these grounds, we will 

 recur to our own experience, and state that. An ac- 

 quaintance, who was a good shot, killed, to my certain 

 knowledge, nine dozen snipe in seven hours, and I myself 

 have frequently killed from seven to eight dozen in the 

 same time. The first day's shooting of my last season, 

 over indifferent ground, and very difficult to walk upon 

 from its inequality of surface, in five hours I to my 

 own gun bagged four dozen, and but that the birds were 



