MARSH BIRDS. 91 



attempted to outline, is very difficult to eradicate. It holds 

 its votaries from youth and rashness, to age and rheumatism ; 

 it is never possible to have too much of it, and enthusiasts 

 declare every day's sport is totally unlike the last, wherein, 

 perhaps, lies some of its charm. 



Truly it is pleasant again in June to lie far out from the 

 world amongst the long grass of some shingle pit 



" With the winds of summer blowing, 

 O'er the wide sands wild and free ; " 



and for once not bent on destruction, but in pleasant 

 fellowship with lowly nature to watch the wild bird life 

 those dainty redshanks, for instance, who glitter and flash in 

 the sunlight as it catches their white under plumage before 

 they settle in a piping cluster on the flats. They dabble 

 with infinite daintiness their coral beaks and legs, keeping 

 them spotless and immaculate in a world of sludge. There 

 are many other birds as pleasing and curious in their ways, 

 of which no one but the cockle men and the marsh gunner 

 know really anything. 



The snipe shooter proper is a being of higher sphere ; he 

 rarely mixes with the Bohemians of the banks. Yet his 

 special pleasure is, as we have said before, very delightful 

 and engrossing. His is a fine art in itself an art that 

 can only be learnt in its fulness by long years of patient 

 study. Where the snipe will lie to-morrow, and where they 

 will come from, whether to beat them up wind or down wind, 

 with dogs or without, to take them in the rain or, with the 

 gallant Colonel Hawker, to wait until the wind has dried 

 the rushes ; are all important and pregnant questions. The 

 themes under the heading of " snipe," are infinite. Who 

 shall say with any finality whether No. 6 or No. 8 shot is 

 best for him, whether it is true he uses his bill in rising, 

 whether he really listens for the creeping worm, as he 

 certainly seems to do when that delicate head of his is 

 turned on one side, even of what his food consists, and 

 whether August is too early to begin shooting. 



