166 WOODCOCKS AND SNIPES. 



good shot will hit a jack even more certainly than a mire- 

 snipe. 



In bare ground, I have frequently noticed both mire 

 and jack snipes squatted before my dog's nose. Once I 

 plainly saw the point of a mire-snipe's bill stuck in the 

 ground, ready to hoist him into the air. I watched 

 narrowly, and, in taking wing, he used his long bill 

 exactly as we would a walking-stick. Snipes have the 

 same predilection for a particular spot as woodcocks. One 

 severe winter, my retriever sprung a mire-snipe out of 

 a puddle, close to the Gala water. It flew across the 

 stream, and I fractured the tip of its wing just when it 

 reached the other side. It fell among thick furze, and we 

 were unable to find it. Next day my retriever picked it 

 up at the same ditch, unable to fly a yard. It could only 

 have recrossed the Gala by swimming. 



While speaking of the covert, I shall make one quota- 

 tion from a periodical about battue-shooting, which entirely 

 coincides with my own ideas : " The battue is a bastard 

 sport, an attempt to graft foreign customs on good English 

 pastimes. It is only fitted for the emasculated creatures 

 who have not sense or stamina enough to endure a day's 

 toil in the legitimate pursuit of beasts and birds, whom 

 nature seems to have designed for the purpose of testing 

 the skill and resolution of men in the pursuit and capture 

 of them." 



