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CHAPTER XXXVII. 

 WINTER IN THE MARSHES. 



Snipe-shooting. 



Spanish, Agacliona, agachadiza. 

 Portuguese, Narceja. 



The Peninsula has always been famous for its snipe- 

 shooting, but the sport differs in some ways from that 

 practised on British marsh or moor. The snipe in Spain 

 does not, as a rule, frequent rushes or other covert. The 

 Spanish marshes in winter afford scant covert of any kind ; 

 hence the snipe is proportionately wilder. Piarely does the 

 long-bill spring at close range : the bulk of the bag must 

 be cut down at such distances that a snipe-shooter at home 

 would very probably decline the offer — without thanks. 

 But there are exceptions to this. In certain localities, 

 particularly in Portugal, -\ve have enjoyed excellent snipe- 

 shooting on wide-spread expanses of rushy marsh and 

 under home conditions. The rice-stubbles also, in districts 

 where rice is grown, afford perhaps the finest snipe-shoot- 

 ing, often with abundant covert. 



Many of the best snipe-grounds, however, may be 

 described as inundated pastures. Here the summer-scorched 

 herbage barely hides the naked earth — or rather fine mud, 

 more slipj)ery than ice. The ground here, however, is firm ; 

 the deep- mud bogs are quite another, but equally favourite 

 resort. Before one's view there stretches awa}^ what 

 appears to be a verdant meadow, dead level, and clad in 

 rich green grass. Walk out on it, and you find it is bog, 

 soft as pulp — millions of flat-topped, quivering tussocks, 

 each separated by narrow intervals of squashy slime, 



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