SNIPE SHOOTING. 19 



uncertainty, its essentially wild surroundings, and the satisfaction 

 of finding one's game, and holding one's gun straight. I may be 

 unduly enthusiastic, but to me there is a charm in the mere 

 splashing through a bit of snipe bog, a thrill engendered by the 

 " sc-a-a-pe" of a Snipe, as he shapes his tortuous flight, that the 

 whirr of "twice twenty thousand cock pheasants on wing" 

 never awakens. I know that my game is thoroughly wild. 1 have 

 looked for him in the proper place, and approached him in the 

 right direction, and if, as I catch a glint of his white under-wings 

 I have " straight powder'' why, I glow with pride and pleasure. 

 Foolish, perhaps, to let a little bird of some 5 oz. in weight 

 influence one so ; but brother sportsmen will back me in my 

 assertion, and those who know not the delights of shooting the 

 Snipe can, at any rate, testify to his value as a dish. Though in 

 other climes there exist many varieties of Snipe, in Great Britain 

 only three are commonly known : the Great or Solitary Snipe, the 

 Full Snipe and the Jack Snipe. The first of these is a very rare 

 bird, for few sportsmen have so much as seen the Solitary Snipe, 

 and though some are recorded as having been shot or seen every 

 year, they are few and far between. I will therefore dismiss him 

 from the list with the hope that when one gets up before any 

 reader of A Year of Sport and Natural History, he may " hold 

 straight," and thus earn distinction as having shot one of the 

 rarest of British birds ; and here I may add that such good fortune 

 once fell to my lot some eighteen years ago. The place was 

 Cove Common, Aldershot, and on that occasion I expended five 

 cartridges, and bagged one Solitary Snipe, two Full, and two Jack 

 Snipe. 



Though in Scotland and Ireland, and, indeed, in some parts of 



D 2 



