Wilson's snipe. 191 



wild, tliey make long flights even in the calmest and clearest 

 weather; and are, as said before, very difficult to be got at, in 

 consequence of this very " calm and clearness of the atmosphere," 

 as they possess very acute organs of hearing, and take wing at 

 the slightest noise, which is "wafted gently o'er the moor" from 

 all quarters, and from very long distances; and when one rises, 

 if in Wisps of two, three, or more, the alarm most usually be- 

 comes general, and the example is followed by all the others in 

 quick succession. 



Notwithstanding these Birds are, perhaps, more difficult to 

 be killed on a windy day than a mild one, there are but few 

 Snipe-shooters that would not prefer a moderately windy day 

 to a calm one, as the points in favor of the former certainly 

 overbalance all that can be said of the latter position, and that 

 very considerably. In this opinion, we presume that we are 

 sustained by nearly all our sporting friends ■ however, there are 

 some of our acquaintances, one at least, and what is more sur- 

 prising, a very acute observer, too, about all things in general, 

 and more particularly about everything appertaining to the 

 sports of the field, who will at times contend for the opposite, 

 and strive most pertinaciously to support his erroneous opinion, 

 in spite of all the powerful arguments brought to bear against 

 it, by men not his inferiors in any point of view as Sportsmen. 



The only argument worth alluding to — and which, in fact, is 

 not an argument, but merely a position or assertion that these 

 advocates of calm weather adduce in support of their opinion — 

 is the fact "of the Shooter so frequently overwalking the Birds 

 on a windy day, and finding them get up far behind him after 

 he has passed over the places where he expected to find them." 

 This circumstance, however, is not owing to the state of the 

 atmosphere, but rather in consequence of his own ignorance 

 and bad management in not quartering the ground properly, 

 which is of the utmost consequence in Snipe-shooting, when 

 pursued without the assistance of a Dog. When we say that 

 the Sportsman must hunt down wind, we do not mean that he 

 should walk directly with the wind in his back, but rather that 

 he should proceed in an oblique course, so as to quarter the 

 ground in such a manner as to travel within hearing distance 

 of every Bird that might be feeding around. By following 



