SNIPE SHOOTING. 45 



springs from the marshes, and when brought to 

 bag, as well as its delicacy 011 the table, it has 

 long been an object of especial interest to the 

 keenest and most imaginative of our sportsmen. 

 We have no doubt that one thing which makes 

 snipe shooting pre-eminently attractive to some 

 sportsmen, is the delightful state of uncertainty 

 which now, more than ever, attends the pursuit 

 of this species of game. 



Partridge shooting, so long upheld as the beau 

 ideal of sport, savors rather too much of the pre- 

 serves to be exactly to the taste of a thorough 

 hunter. In a country well stocked with game of 

 this kind, whenever there are stubbles, at the 

 proper time of day there you will find birds ; and 

 there is something in the half domesticated nature 

 of this familiar little member of the gallinaceous 

 order, in the loud, clear " all right" of the male, 

 the tender and anxious calls of the scattered co- 

 vey, and the extreme terror which they display 

 in hiding away from the dogs, which, after a few 

 brace are killed, half disarms many a reflective 

 sportsman. With the snipe, on the contrary, we 

 have no sympathies of this sort ; he is not one of 

 us, but, comparatively speaking, a sort of winged 

 cosmopolite ; is often wary and shy, and as soon 

 as he springs, begins to exercise his ingenuity to 



