3o8 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



birds, and then report the number down. Standing 

 quite still and indicating the spots one after another, 

 his master would walk to the dead birds and pick 

 them up. When snipe were numerous he would 

 sometimes have ten or a dozen down at the same 

 time, and by pursuing this plan in going from one 

 to another, lay the time he had gathered these he 

 would perhaps kill several more, the majority of 

 which would have escaped unshot at if he had sent 

 a man or dog for them. 



Mr Pringle's modus operandi is so instructive to 

 snipe-shooters that it deserves to be quoted in 

 extenso. 



" On reaching the ground and getting out of the 

 waggon, I would station it on a ridge, with orders 

 to keep within signalling distance, and when I re- 

 quired more cartridges, or my men had as many 

 birds as they could well carry, I would signal, and 

 it would come to me as fast as possible. When 

 birds were abundant I never allowed the dog to 

 range, for a snipe is a very wild bird, with but little 

 scent, and a dog, however good and careful, would 

 flush out of distance many more birds than he 

 would point." 



" When practicable I shot down wind, with a 

 marker or beater walking abreast of me about 15 

 yards off; with two beaters, one on each side of 

 me, I would have the waggon meet me to leeward, 

 and when I got to the end of the beat I would drive 

 over the ground I had just beaten, so as not to 

 disturb the rest of it, and take another parallel beat 

 down wind, and so on until I had shot all that 



