THE FIELD. SNIPE-SHOOTING. 247 



intermixture of soft southerly or south-westerly breezes, 

 and tepid rain showers with April gusts and sunshine ; 

 the meadows should not be overflowed with water, nor 

 yet, by any means, be dry or arid, but should be equally 

 divided, or nearly 'so, between grassy dry tracts, from 

 which the spring rains have long enough subsided to 

 allow the herbage to grow sufficiently tall to yield a dry 

 and comfortable covert, and shallow muddy pools, slanks 

 and runnels, in which abound the aquatic insects on which 

 the snipe breed. 



When the meadows are in this condition, early, and 

 the weather is settled, fine and genial, the snipe make up 

 their minds, as it would seem, to make a long halt, and 

 refresh themselves fairly, before they again take wing for 

 their northern breeding-places ; and, in this case, they 

 attach themselves to the ground, grow fat, tame and lazy ; 

 and will sometimes, where they are not harassed by inces- 

 sant persecution and pot-shooting, lie so hard to the dog, 

 that they can with difficulty be got to rise on the wing. 



This occurs, however, only when the birds come on 

 the ground early, and when the weather is fine during the 

 whole, or, at least, the greater part of their stay. On 

 their first coming they are always wild, constantly in motion, 

 restless and capricious, often deserting favorite grounds 

 and shifting to others in no wise superior, without any 

 imaginable reason. If the meadows be in good order, 

 and the weather follows mild and warm, they settle them- 

 selves down, often pairing, and sometimes even breeding 

 in the country. I have myself never seen a nest of young 

 snipe, as I have the young woodcock repeatedly, while 



