4 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



should be sorry to lay down, as some people do, 

 definite rules on the subject. The only good rule is 

 not to be in a hurry. To this there is, however, one 

 exception, which is when a snipe rises rather wild and 

 nearly out of range. He must then be shot directly 

 he gets on the wing. One more hint : when snipe- 

 shooting, keep a sharp look-out overhead. Snipe 

 have a way of circling round their native bogs, and 

 though they are sometimes very high up, they not 

 unfrequently pass over one within very fair range, and 

 give very pretty shots. 



Snipe-shooting is essentially a poor man's sport. 

 Being purely wanderers (though a few breed with us) 

 they cannot be preserved, and not being game they 

 come within the scope of a ten-shilling gun license. 

 Hence in country places where there is not much 

 preserving, we often find a handicraftsman, who not 

 only knows where to find the snipe, but who rarely 

 misses one. Every one knows what sort of places to 

 find snipe in ; the brooklet or open drain running 

 through sedgy banks, or the boggy spot in a badly 

 drained field. I may here remark, I once shot one in 

 a young oak coppice on a hill noted for being entirely 

 without water. But the difficulty is to know which of 

 these spots the snipe affect. For they are very fanciful, 

 and out of two similar spots one will always hold a 

 snipe, and the other never. The curious thing about 

 these places is that they are never over-populated and 

 yet rarely untenanted. You may find a snipe there 

 (generally there is only one) and kill him one week, 

 but the next week there will be another. If you bag 



