324 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



ous in the life of the snipe is really in harmony with 

 the needs of its nature. As it is nocturnal in habit, 

 it is difficult to study, and it is specially difficult for 

 the resident of one locality to observe its general habits 

 with any degree of precision. Seeing it in but one 

 small corner of its habitat, the local sportsman can 

 gain, at best, but a fragmentary knowledge of its needs 

 and its habits. 



Being swift of wing and enduring of flight, the 

 snipe undoubtedly feeds over vast areas of ground 

 many miles apart, twenty or thirty miles of flight being 

 of no more effort to it when in search of food than 

 twenty or thirty rods are to the prairie chicken. When 

 snipe invade feeding grounds in vast numbers, as is 

 frequently the case, the grounds are soon thoroughly 

 bored, and all the food within reach is consumed; 

 thus it may be a necessity for them to seek food else- 

 where till the exhausted grounds have time to replen- 

 ish themselves. 



Many writers lay great stress on the difficulties of 

 snipe shooting. They treat it as a bird of phenomenal 

 swiftness and erratic flight, and the shooting of it as 

 requiring something extraordinary in the matter of 

 skill. As a matter of fact, snipe shooting, at certain 

 times, is the easiest of shooting. On warm days, when 

 the birds are fat and lazy, flying slowly and tamely, 

 with pendulous bills, as is often the case in the fall, in 

 the South, no bird a-wing is more easily killed. They 

 are then disinclined to fly. They indolently lie to the 

 dog's points till the shooter walks them up. 



