Sporting Notes in the Far East. 155 



information ; principally owing to my bad luck, in never being 

 present at the port during any of the snipe seasons, and I am sorry 

 to say that my " Up country " experiences are also rather limited. 



This being the case, I dare not go further than to mention only, 

 the places that I have myself personally tried, with the hope that 

 the many good sportsmen in distant Cathay, will not be too severe. 



Commencing very near at home ; a friend and myself shot a few 

 snipe out of season, near the rifle butts, in the first week in 

 February ; a sure find being some patches of highly cultivated 

 garden ground, around the village close at hand on the right 

 facing the targets. I was most forcibly struck here by the callous 

 way in which these " Range snipe " appeared to totally ignore the 

 constant noise of the rifle practice that is going on almost all day, 

 and every day. It was also just at the back of this village, that I 

 had the great luck to shoot a woodcock, especially as these birds 

 are very scarce near Shanghai. 



I shall relate the story, as I think the reader will say that the 

 whole incident was rather peculiar. 



I was one day on duty, engaged taking a musketry party through 

 their annual course of firing, and during the intervals allowed for 

 the men's dinners, a companion and myself sallied off with our 

 guns and the old dog, in quest of a snipe. We had found, and 

 also laid low a couple of these, when a bird slowly got up to me, which 

 my friend on account of his sluggish flight, took to be an owl, and 



