216 THE FOWLER IN IRELAND. 



" Three years ago, in December, I killed eighteen 

 Jack Snipe in one day in a sedgy, shaking swamp 

 in the middle of a large red bog. They were all 

 large and wonderfully well-conditioned birds. I 

 could never understand this day's sport, for the like 

 never happened to me before or since. I have 

 always observed that Jack Snipe frequent swamps 

 and marshy places in preference to the open red 

 bogs and mountains ; also that they are not influ- 

 enced by the changes of the moon like Common 

 Snipe. The marshes and swamps are usually 

 drained, whilst the bogs and mountains are not. In 

 my younger days poachers could kill only wild ducks 

 sitting on the water and hares in their forms ; now 

 they can shoot Snipe and Cock flying, and hares on 

 foot as well as any gentleman. 



" By the way," says Colonel Peyton, " what has 

 become of all our Irish Quail ? We never see one 

 now. Years ago I could always kill five couple of 

 these birds when Snipe-shooting by merely trying 

 the dry fields close to the bogs. They were large 

 plump birds too, far superior, in my opinion, to those 

 I have shot in either India, Africa, or Sardinia." 



A springe* for taking Snipe, Woodcock, and other 



* In the eastern and southern counties of England these snares 

 are used by poachers, who set them in the sandy spots of the fields 

 where Partridges scratch and dust, and take whole coveys thereby. 

 For hares they set a wire noose tied to a stick by strong cord, and 

 place edgeways to the ground a small twig supporting it in the proper 

 position, that being two fists high for a hare, and one for a rabbit. 

 To find these snares, never search close along the bottom of a hedge- 

 row near the runs. If so set, it is by some bungler, and will catch 

 nothing ; though, of course, it may be watched to see if the owner 

 pays it a visit. The accomplished poacher sets it quite two feet from 

 the hedge. He knows that a hare always canters up, and pauses a 



