and the Maritime Provinces. 113 



many sportsmen affect an indifference as to how they work their ground, 

 and this indifference affects their success in a very marked degree. If 

 you walk up-wind yow. give the snipe an advantage. At first sight this may 

 appear an absurdity, for most birds take advantage of the wind and fly 

 with it, or down wind. The snipe always rises against the wind. Let the 

 sportsman bear in mind that if he wants to get the better of snipe — and 

 what is woodcraft but approaching your game under the most favorable 

 circumstances to yourself ? — he must approach the bird's haunt down or 

 across wind. Then when the bird rises he will try to face the wind and give a 

 crossing shot, which will naturally expose more of his body than if he went 

 straight away. Besides, the bird has then little chance of indulging in those 

 corkscrew twists which make so many otherwise good shots miss him." 



The snipe, like the woodcock, remains with us until late in the 

 autumn, but its stay depends entirely upon the season. 



If freezing weather comes on early and their supply of food is cut off, 

 they depart for a more genial climate by the end of October or early in 

 November. But if the season is a late one, and their feeding-places are 

 not ice-bound, their stay is considerably prolonged, and I have shot both 

 species in Massachusetts as late as the twentieth of November, and have 

 even known of a few being taken early in December. That the autumnal 

 migration to the south is caused by its food supply being sealed up by 

 freezing weather is evidenced by the fact that the snipe winters in such 

 high latitudes as the coast region in the vicinity of Puget sound, in Ore- 

 gon and Washington, and even in the interior, near Fort Dallas on the 

 Columbia river, where it has repeatedly been taken in midwinter. The 

 climate on the upper western coast is much milder than that on the 

 Atlantic in the same latitude, the severe cold of the latter being replaced 

 in the other by what is properly a " rainy season." 



When we returned to camp our catch made a handsome showing. 



" Four more candidates for the smoker," said the Judge, " and all 

 good fish." 



Francois had prepared the dinner, and a generous repast it proved to 

 be. We lingered over it a long time, and the reminiscences which were 

 brought up would, if they could be recorded, make interesting and instruc- 

 tive reading. My friends were both brilliant conversationalists, and I 

 enjoyed their chatter hugely. The afternoon proved one of the most sul- 

 try and uncomfortable that we had experienced ; any exertion was dis- 

 tasteful, and we contented ourselves with burning tobacco, and, as the 

 Doctor said, " taking things easy." 



"I 'm a little surprised," said the Judge, after I had told him of my 

 discovery of the snipe, " that the bird should breed in such a place as 

 this. I thought they preferred a more open country, one where extensive 

 marshes and swampy tracts are found." 



