SNIPE 331 



and then the vocal sound, as well as the other, is distinctly 

 heard. 



The powers of flight of the full snipe vary with the time of 

 year. The author once knew a grouse shooter of long experi- 

 ence and success who prided himself upon his skill as a snipe 

 shot. When, however, he was for the first time in his life 

 taken to a snipe bog in November, he never let off his gun. 

 The birds, he said, were too wild to shoot ; but others shot them, 

 so that it may be said there are snipe and snipe. These birds 

 seem to feed all day and all night too ; at any rate they may be 

 found upon their night feeding-grounds at all times of the day, 

 and so fond are they of favoured places that they return to them 

 constantly. Moreover, if one bird is killed on a favoured boring 

 ground, another almost invariably takes his place in a few days 

 if the weather remains the same. If it does not, every snipe 

 in a neighbourhood may be gone in a night. Snipe are de- 

 pendent upon food they find by boring in soft earth, so that 

 frost compels them to change quarters. As a rule, wet weather 

 disperses snipe all over the mountains and fields ; they can then 

 feed anywhere. Frost sends them into the bogs, and still harder 

 frost to the springs, still harder again to the west coasts and to 

 Ireland. 



Two occasions have been recorded where snipe collected in 

 hundreds upon dry arable fields, where apparently there was 

 nothing for them to feed upon, and where they returned after a 

 snipe drive had been instituted. 



Many are the " certain " methods of getting on terms with 

 these birds, but they are all to be taken with a grain of salt. 

 Whether snipe will lie best when hunted for down or up wind, 

 and whether they should be shot upon the rise or when their 

 twisting is done, are questions to which different and emphatic 

 answers are often given. However, we believe in each by 

 turn and nothing long. The snipe is too changeable a creature 

 to conform to any rule whatever. He is nearest consistency in 

 rising against the wind, but even that depends upon the rate 

 of the wind. When it is only blowing gently, the snipe can 

 rise away from you as you walk down wind ; but they cannot 



