THE FIELD.—SNIPE-SHOOTING. 947 
intermixture of soft southerly or south-westerly breezes, 
and tepid rain showers with April gusts and sunshine; 
the meadows should not be overflowed with water, nor 
yet, by any means, be dry or arid, but should be equally 
divided, or nearly so, between grassy dry tracts, from 
which the spring rains have long enough subsided to 
allow the herbage to grow sufficiently tall to yield a dry 
and comfortable covert, and shallow muddy pools, slanks 
and runnels, in which abound the aquatic insects on which 
the snipe breed. 
When the meadows are in this condition, early, and 
the weather is settled, fine and genial, the snipe make up 
their minds, as it would seem, to make a long halt, and 
refresh themselves fairly, before they again take wing for 
their northern breeding-places; and, in this case, they 
attach themselves to the ground, grow fat, tame and lazy ; 
and will sometimes, where they are not harassed by inces- 
sant persecution and pot-shooting, lie so hard to the dog, 
that they can with difficulty be got to rise on the wing. 
This occurs, however, only when the birds come on 
the ground early, and when the weather is fine during the 
whole, or, at least, the greater part of their stay. On 
their first coming they are always wild, constantly in motion, 
restless and capricious, often deserting favorite grounds 
and shifting to others in no wise superior, without any 
imaginable reason. If the meadows be in good order, 
and the weather follows mild and warm, they settle them- 
selves down, often pairing, and sometimes even breeding 
in the country. I have myself never seen a nest of young 
snipe, as I have the young woodcock repeatedly, while 
