ice out shooting is not required, the soda-water 

 bottles, if carried in a basket with straw wrapped 

 round each, and the whole kept wet, being rendered 

 quite cool. 



A splendid " pick-me-up " after severe toil, is a 

 tin of hare, or some other thick soup, at luncheon 

 time. This is easily procurable at a few minutes' 

 notice, if a tin of soup be opened before starting 

 from home, turned into a wide-necked glass bottle, 

 and carried in the tiffin-bag, together with an etna 

 ready-charged with methylated spirit, and a soup 

 plate ; and personally I can swallow soup when 

 too much overcome by heat and exertion to care 

 about sandwiches, however well made and appe- 

 tising under other conditions the latter may be. 

 (I prefer sandwiches of pdU de foie gras and 

 sardines to any other.) It has never fallen to my 

 lot to shoot in places where, and at times when, 

 very heavy bags of snipe were procurable ; but 

 in many places, granted favourable conditions, bags 

 far in excess of anything possible within my own 

 experience may be obtained, and, only two or three 

 years ago, a single sportsman shooting within reach 

 of Calcutta by rail, and in the same season, made 

 several bags of over one hundred couple each. 

 The season was the second of two characterised 

 by abnormal drought, and a huge area of swamp- 

 usually too wet to be practicable was in good 

 order for snipe, and afforded feeding ground to 

 vast numbers of birds which had been driven to 

 it owing to the drying up of their usual haunts. 

 A bag of over . ninety couple has, within my own 



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