SNIPE 333 



snipe he only allowed the dog to point dead, and not to 

 retrieve. 



He found that there was great loss of shooting unless he 

 himself walked to the fall of every dead bird, as others would 

 be sure to rise near the spot and get away unshot at when this 

 duty was done by deputy. Then this champion snipe shot 

 preferred to beat down wind with a beater each side of him, 

 but when he beat across the wind, as would be done if the 

 ground was awkward for the other method, he had both beaters 

 down wind of him, because of the habit snipe have of rising 

 into the wind. By having the beaters a little behind him, as 

 well as on the down-wind side, he thus got shots at birds they 

 flushed, which would not have been the case had they been 

 up wind of the gun. When the end of the beat was reached, 

 time was saved by driving back, over the ground already beaten, 

 to take another down-wind beat. The ground must have been 

 particularly sound for good snipe bog. Walking up wind was 

 sometimes necessary, and then the arrangement of the beaters, 

 of which there were two, was the same as for the down-wind 

 beat, but the wilder the snipe were the farther behind the gun 

 the beaters' line was formed. 



Mr. Pringle only used one gun, had no loader, and explains 

 that with a second weapon he could have killed many more 

 birds. Probably most people will not be sorry that he did 

 confine himself to one gun. 



The best snipe bag made in England in a day does not at 

 all compare with that from the New Orleans district just quoted. 

 Mr. R. Fellowes is credited with 158 in a day, and Lord 

 Leicester at Holkham, in 1860, with 156 to his own gun in the 

 day. In County Sligo 959 birds were killed in the season 

 1877-78 by Mr. Edward Gethin ; and Mr. Lloyd in 1820 

 wrote that he accounted for 1310 snipe, whereas Mr. Mottram 

 in the Hebrides in 1884 killed 992 snipe to his own gun by 

 the end of October. Sir R. Payne Gallwey tells us of an Irish 

 bag of 212 birds in a day by one gun before the time of breech- 

 loaders, but does not mention the shooter's name. 



The moon has been credited with a good deal of influence 



