UPLAND SHOOTING. ] G5 



it manifest trie slightest inclination to alight on fence, rail, log 

 or tree. I therefore, suppose these habits to be, like dnimming, 

 peculiar to the season, and analogous to the circling and strut- 

 ting of Doves, the fan-tailing of Peacocks, and the like. I 

 should be curious to leani, however, from my Southern friends, 

 who kill them during the winter in far greater numbers on 

 their Georgia and Carolina rice fields than we can pretend to 

 do on our baiTen bog meadows, whether they are ever known 

 there either to take to woodland coverts, or to tree. 



The English Snipe, I am certain, never does either, both from 

 my own experience, and from the observation of many older 

 and better sportsmen than myself I have shot the English / > ^ 

 bird constantly, and for several successive springs, in the fens 

 of Cambridge and Norfolk ; and I have heard him drum there " ^ " ^ 

 more frequently than I have here, but I never heard him chat- •' ' ,'Ium '-^ 

 ter, or saw him take the tree ; and I am certain that he never / / ' 1 

 does so. ' 



While speaking on this subject I must observe, again re- . 



spectfully differing from Mr. Audubon, who asserts that " there •"•'■• *'*' 

 is as great a difference between the notes of the English and .'•' ♦ 6 

 American species of Snipe, as there is between the American ,i,^ |, 

 Crow and the Can-ion Crow of Europe," that in my opinion : * 



the cry of the two Snipes is j'C'fcctJy identical ; and in this '' " / 

 view I am corroborated by the judgment of several English "^'^''G^ 

 sportsmen, with whom I have habitually shot for many seasons * . 

 here, and who, like myself, had killed nundreds of couples of ''*■' 

 Snipe, before visiting America. The number of feathers in the 

 tail of the European and American species differs ; and I am 

 nearly certain that the English bird is somewhat larger and 

 heavier — Wilson, who first distinguished the two species, noti- 

 T itlh-'^^^ ^^^^ difference in size — but otherwise in appearance, and 

 '[,^1\ in all their ordinary habits, they are identical. I lay, how- 

 "i ' *^ ever, great stress on the difference of note, in the breeding 

 I '■'■■■ *" ■' season, and in the other peculiarities alluded to, as setting the 

 question of variety on a much broader and more distinct base, 



V. t-:- 



