SNIPE-SHOOTING. 1138 
burnt over, some two years before, grew thick and mat- 
ted on the loose rotten soil, through which, every few 
yards asunder, soaked little rills of nearly stagnant 
water, indicated more by the blackness and ooziness of 
theix muddy channels, than by any visible stream or 
current. 
The setters looked at one another wistfully, and then 
at their master, as if they wondered what the deuce they 
were expected to do in such ground as that, and when 
at length in obedience to his “hold up, good lads!” and 
the wafture of his hand to the right and left, they broke 
off, and began to quarter their ground steadily and 
beautifully, crossing each other in regular diagonal 
lines; they did not beat at their usual dashing gallop, 
heads up and sterns down, as they would have done, 
had they been beating for quail, but felt their way, as it 
were, gingerly and fearfully, keeping at a trot, though 
they whipped their flanks all the time with their 
feathery sterns, and often putting down their noses, as 
if to seek for some strange trail or scent. 
“Upon my lite! Harry,” said his friend, “if it were 
not impossible, I should believe that those dogs know as 
well as we do, that they are after some game to which 
they are unaccustomed to day.” 
“ Know it! of course they know it! Why, if we had 
been upon stubbles, they would have ranged the whole 
of this piece, before this time. Ha! Bob—toho!” he 
exclaimed, as a snipe sprung directly under the black 
