272 MANUAL FOB YOUNQ. SPORTSMEN. 



ward, to their breeding-places beyond Symsonia and Labra- 

 dor, that a few brant linger yet about the Long Island 

 bays and New Jersey beaches, and are then deemed by 

 gastronomes to be in the very height of their culinary 

 excellence, " a dainty to set before a king ; " but their 

 appearance is so rare, and any thing like a day's sport so 

 unattainable, that they are abandoned exclusively to the 

 Raynors, the Smiths, and the Veritys of Long Island, and, 

 as they are, whether justly or unjustly, called, it is not for 

 me, who am in some sort a Jerseyman, to say, the pirates 

 of Barnegat. 



Just at the moment, however, when all shooting ap- 

 pears to be over, suddenly " from the tepid waters of 

 Florida, the great bay of Mobile, the sea-lakes of Borgne 

 and Ponchartrain, the lagoons, and muddy flats, and allu- 

 vial shoals of the lower Mississippi, where they have con- 

 gregated in countless myriads, while the ice was thick even 

 in the sea-bays of the Chesapeake and Delaware, and while 

 all the gushing streams and vocal rivulets of the Northern 

 and Middle States were bound in voiceless silence," arrive 

 the numerous families of waders, who, their proper name 

 being legion, are indiscriminately and improperly known 

 as bay snipe. 



These, like the geese and ducks which have preceded 

 them, farther to the northward than even the intrepid Kane 

 has forced his adventurous keel, are bound Labrador-wise, 

 to lay eggs and hatch countless young in due season, and 

 every where along our shores they follow onward, host 

 impelling host, and pause awhile to recreate themselves 

 the baymen, and such city or country sportsmen as care 



