332 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



do so in heavy breeze, and consequently walking down wind 

 gives the easiest shooting, and sometimes also enables a better 

 approach to be made to the birds. On the other hand, if your 

 feet are cracking up ice, you will probably not get near to the 

 birds however you attempt to approach them, and they can 

 hear you farthest off when you are beating down wind. In 

 very wet bogs a dog will generally flush more snipe than he 

 will point, but when they will lie to a dog, down wind is still 

 the best way, for although your setter will sometimes flush by 

 accident, he will point a great many that otherwise would not 

 rise at all, and this little 4 oz. bird gives out a great scent, 

 one that in favourable conditions enables a dog to find him at 

 50 and even 100 yards. A curious feature is that young 

 dogs do not object to pointing the game, although they hate 

 to mouth it. Indeed, it is only upon close approach to a dead 

 snipe that a retriever first shows his abhorrence, just as if he 

 were suddenly taken by surprise in his pleasurable anticipation 

 of mouthing the game. In the Snipe and Woodcock of the 

 Fur and Feather Series, Mr. Shaw gives the 1376 snipe killed 

 in the 1 880-81 season as the best ever made in the British 

 Islands, but this is nothing compared with Mr. Pringle's work in 

 Louisiana already referred to. His best season was that of 

 1874-75, when his own gun killed 6615 snipe. In twenty 

 seasons there he killed to his own gun 69,087 snipe, and his 

 best day, on nth December 1877, gave a bag of 366 snipe. 

 Britishers may be inclined to doubt whether the Wilson snipe 

 gives the same difficult chances as our own full snipe, but their 

 habits are identical, as also is their flight. Probably, therefore, 

 it may best serve as a guide to shooters if instead of the author 

 attempting to decide which method of beating is the best, he 

 quotes Mr. Pringle's words, for he surely is the champion 

 snipe shot. 



First, then, he preferred full choked hammerless guns by 

 Purdey, and he used No. 9 shot, with sometimes No. 8 in 

 the second barrel. Presumably these were American sizes. 

 When the game was scarce, Mr. Pringle used a pointer or 

 setter in the ordinary way, but when there were lots of 



