48 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 



How often have shooters, knowing that birds 

 were on the meadows below, and not wishing to 

 start off on Friday or Saturday, postponed their 

 departure until the following Monday, when a 

 wet gale from the north-east has set in, and no 

 further accounts of snipe have been received 

 until the wind hauled to a more auspicious point. 



Independent of this, some writers assert that 

 the snipe is, naturally, of a restless and capricious 

 disposition that conscious of his powers of 

 flight, he often whimsically takes to wing when 

 none of the foregoing causes are known to exist, 

 apparently delighting in his extent of range ; and 

 at last suddenly drops down from the field of air 

 in some new feeding ground, miles and miles 

 from the spot which he so unaccountably aban- 

 doned. 



We have no serious objection to investing our 

 favorite with this etherial character, making him, 

 so to speak, a sort of "dainty ^Eriel" to his own 

 wild will ; but we suspect, nevertheless, that he 

 is not exactly like the renowned Scotch geese, 

 who liked their play better than their food. 



As his powers of digestion are equally well 

 known with those of his flight, we are inclined 

 to think that he has still a wary eye to the main 

 chance, and that his eccentric coquettings w r ith 



