164 FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



sessed the power of taking wing from the surface of water, 

 which I am greatly incHned to doubt. I was well aware pre- 

 viously of the fact, that many of the Shore-birds and Sand- 

 pipers swim on emergency, but I little suspected the Snipe of 

 possessing the like power. 



I know not. that the being acquainted with this habit of the 

 Snipe can materially aid the sportsman ; but, in case of dogs 

 drawing on the trail of birds, which had run and fed, up to a 

 brook-side, or on the foot of a wing-tipped bird, I should now 

 certainly try forward, across the water, which I should not pre- 

 viously have done. 



The peculiarities of cry, flight, and perching, which I have 

 related above, are well known to many of our sportsmen here ; 

 and I can readily produce half-a-dozen witnesses to the various 

 facts I have stated, within a dozen miles of the room in which 

 I am now writing ; as well as to the bird's occasional habit of 

 resorting to the interior of woods, which Mr. Audubon positive- 

 ly asserts that he never does. 



By the way, since penning the above, it just strikes me that 

 in the Spring of 1840, when the snow was not entirely off the 

 Uplands, in shooting with a friend from Quebec, we moved three 

 Snipe from a little piece of white-birch woodland, one of which 

 was shot by my companion, and retrieved by my setter in the 

 bushes, and a second of which I killed over a point in the next 

 field, not very far from Lorette. 



I am inclined to believe all these habits to be purely local, 

 as concerns the American bird. Not local, owing to any 

 peculiar circumstance of the place, but of the seasons in which 

 the bird visits or frequents the places. In other words, I sup- 

 pose them all to be connected with the amorous and sexual 

 intercourse of the birds, and to commence and terminate with 

 the breeding season. 



In the summer, when I have shot a few young birds during 

 Cock-shooting, and in the autumn when I have killed five 

 times as many as I have in spring, I never heai'd any cry from 

 the Snipe except the regular " scaipe ;'' nor have I ever seen 



