Snipe Shooting 189 



leaves of a dark fawn hue, but all, scattered by the 

 winds, presently resolve into a black pulp upon the 

 earth. Noting these signs the sportsman gets out his 

 dust-shot for the snipe, and the farmer, as he sees the 

 fieldfare flying over after a voyage from Norway, 

 congratulates himself that last month was reasonably 

 dry, and enabled him to sow his winter seed. 



' Sceap sceap ! ' and very often the snipe success- 

 fully carries out the intention expressed in his odd- 

 sounding cry, and does escape in reality. Although 

 I could not at first put my theory into practice, yet I 

 found by experience that it was correct. He is the 

 exception to the golden rule that the safest way lies 

 in the middle, and that therefore you should fire not 

 too soon nor too late, but half-way between. But the 

 snipe must either be knocked over the instant he rises 

 from the ground, and before he has time to commence 

 his puzzling zig-zag flight, or else you must wait till 

 he has finished his corkscrew burst. 



Then there is a moment just before he passes out 

 of range when he glides in a straight line and may be 

 hit. This singular zig-zag flight so deceives the eye 

 as almost to produce the idea of a spiral movement. 

 No barrel can ever be jerked from side to side swiftly 

 enough, no hair-trigger is fine enough, to catch him 

 then, except by the chance of a vast scattering over- 



