2 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



the enormous quantities of the ScolopacicUe > which 

 come south every winter, bred ? 



When the frosts come, in the British Isles, and the 

 north winds blow strong, there are the snipe and 

 the woodcock, sometimes in hundreds. Have I not 

 myself been an eye-witness almost to the arrival of 

 the snipe in the tropics ? I have seen them listless, 

 almost unwilling to move, and when shot mere skin 

 and bones. Evidently they had not arrived more 

 than a few hours. Next week they were strong and 

 lively ; a month after deliciously fat, and well worth 

 the trouble they gave in the shooting. Where do 

 they all come from ? The day before writing these 

 lines I received a letter, speaking of the enormous bags 

 of woodcock which are annually made on the Adriatic 

 coasts, from M. von Hohenberg, who edits with 

 such skill the German sporting paper, the Waldmann. 

 In it he speaks of bags of one hundred woodcock per 

 gun being frequently made by parties of three and 

 four guns on the island of Veglia, near Fiume. Again 

 I ask, where do they all come from ? The explanation 

 given by the Indian sportsman is Siberia, but Siberia 

 is not now a terra incognita. Has any traveller 

 visited the breeding grounds where these myriads of 

 snipe and woodcock are hatched ? For the few that 

 breed with us are not worth considering. I have a 

 theory of my own on the subject, based on the many 

 proofs we have that the North Pole is not, as has long 

 been thought, given up entirely to ice and snow. 

 May it not be there that these happy breeding grounds 

 are situated ? The other day some papers informed 



