THE FIELD. SNIPE-SHOOTING. 251 



more than one occasion, I have had tolerable sport, under 

 evil auspices, in easterly wind and pelting sleet or snow 

 squalls, among high wood, on what, at a different season, 

 would be famous summer cock ground. 



I mention all these circumstances, as showing where a 

 man should look for his game according to any variation 

 of weather. 



No one, of course, in his senses, who lives in near 

 vicinity of the ground, would dream of going out snipe- 

 shooting in such weather as I have named, or of persevering, 

 if the day should change to the bad, or the birds take to 

 drumming. He would, as a matter of course, jog home, 

 give " Dash " and " Don " their messes, hang up his Man- 

 ton or his Mullin, and say, with Peter Simple, " better 

 luck next time." 



Still less would any resident of a city select such 

 weather, or such circumstances, for visiting the country on 

 a snipe-shooting expedition. But with him the matter is 

 widely different ; he has come, perhaps, twenty, fifty, a 

 hundred miles from his " domus et placens uxor," * for a 

 week or ten days, difficultly spared from business by an 

 effort not this season to be repeated. Therefore, " blow 

 high, blow low," he must make the best of it; and, by 

 knowing in what out-of-the-way, unlikely nooks and cor- 

 ners birds are to be found, if they are to be found any 

 where, in such unpromising weather, he may make a decent 

 bag, when equally good shots and as persevering workmen, 

 not being up to the dodge, will go home empty-handed. 



* " Home and pretty wife." HOR. 



