AUTUMN SNIPE SHOOTING BIRDS HERE LATELY. 



XII 



SNIPE SHOOTING 



THE snipe is as nearly cosmopolitan as a bird well can be, for 

 he is found scattered broadcast over the two hemispheres, 

 demanding only in return for his presence moist feeding grounds 

 of ample dimensions. 



The ' scaipe-scaipe ', as he suddenly rises quick as a flash from 

 nowhere in particular, is a familiar note along the low marshy levels 

 of Australia, the dyked lands of Holland, the river bottoms of 

 'California, and the vast sloughs of Central Asia. He draws the 

 :fire of the home-sick British subaltern in the rice fields of India, 

 and is the chief solace of the shooting-man in the Mississippi Valley 

 and the Grand Prairie of Illinois. He dances away unharmed from 

 the trembling aim of the tyro in the bog lands of Ireland ; he pierces 

 far into the bleak tundra of the arctic circle ; he gives life to the 

 sunny savannahs which border the Mexican Gulf, while in the deli- 

 cious Canadian autumn weather he furnishes the chief ingredient 

 of the very respectable ' mixed bag ' which may be picked up in 

 the course of a long day's tramp across country. 



While the American woodcock is sharply differentiated from 

 the European species, nothing short of the tyranny of science can 

 compel the casual observer to admit that the English and the Ameri- 

 can snipe are sub-specifically distinct, so much alike are they in 



