THE FIELD.—SNIPE-SHOOTING. 253 
and that, instead of jumping up breast high at one jerk, 
and then zigzagging away like a flash of lightning, they 
will flop lazily along, like half-awakened owls in daylight, 
and, if they have been undisturbed and have long haunted 
the ground, will often drop again within twenty yards of 
the dog that has flushed them. 
When they do thus, there is no easier bird, even for 
a tyro; all that has to be done is to let them go away a 
fair distance, so as to allow for the spread of your shot, 
to be cool, and to cover your bird before you pull the 
trigger. 
There is one peculiarity in the snipe, that it invari- 
ably rises up wind, and goes away as nearly up wind as 
possible. The consequence is that a mode of beating for 
him is proper, is indeed the only proper mode, which 
would be decidedly wrong in trying for any other kind 
of game. 
One must invariably beat down wind for him. If 
possible, and where there is a long narrow range of 
meadow, I would make a great circuit, and lose a couple of 
hours in doing s0, since it is by far the better way to enter 
the ground from the windward, instead of, as one should do 
in every other sort of shooting, from the leeward end. If 
not, the whole tract must be worked diagonally, never 
fully up-wind, and wherever an unusually likely piece of 
lying ground, soft oozy tender grass, outspread in patches - 
between high dry reed beds or burnt grounds, in which 
snipe never lie, or rusty half evaporated slanks and pools, 
or tussocky spring bogs, a circuit must be made to get the 
wind. If the dog points, the shooter must in every cas 
