50 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 



and upon visiting the snipe ground on the suc- 

 ceeding day, hardly a solitary individual was to 

 be found. 



The signs of the aifray were there, but the 

 meadow was deserted except by a few crippled 

 birds. After securing these, all we could do was 

 to sit on a convenient stump and smile at the mo- 

 tions of Dash, who, remembering the first day's 

 shooting, could scarcely convince himself that 

 the game had flown, despite the evidence of his 

 nose. 



This flight of snipe were, of course, migrating 

 southward, and having pitched into an isolated 

 spot where food was abundant, were extremely 

 loath to leave it, until their wants were satisfied 

 and their powers recruited for new efforts on the 

 wing. 



It is proper to state that the place where the 

 birds were found, was composed of a few acres of 

 bare, black loam and tussocks, flanked on either 

 side by a thick woods. 



Snipe are not, moreover, so extremely sensi- 

 tive to frost as the books would lead the unprac- 

 tised shooter to suppose. Any person who has 

 hunted these birds for successive seasons, will 

 tell you that he has killed snipe in considerable 

 numbers both in the spring and fall, when the 



