THE FIELD.—SNIPE-SHOOTING. 255 
One may walk the birds up without any dog, and with 
this advantage, that they will lie better to a man than 
to a man and a dog, as also to a man with one dog, than 
to one or two men with two, three or four dogs. But if 
the range be very extensive, and the birds very scarce, 
lying, perhaps, scattered wide apart, two or three or half a 
dozen to the square mile, where is the slow man and’ the 
slow old pointer ? 
Now a fast dog may and should be both very steady, 
and thoroughly cautious. By steady, I mean that he must 
be stanch as steel, and immovable on his point. For 
snipe-shooting, above all things, he must not crawl in, or 
attempt to decrease his distance from his game, but must 
stand stiff, the instant he is sure that his game is before 
him. Snipe rarely run under any circumstances, and still 
more rarely will endure the crawling up of a timid and 
tender-nosed dog. Secondly, he must remain motionless 
and unexcited, though the shooter, instead of coming up 
to flush the bird over his point, should he chance to point 
up wind or across wind, turn his back upon his tail, make 
along circuit, and come down in his face. 
He must also, if possible, though few dogs will do so, 
advance to meet the gun on a silent beckon of the hand, 
without call or whistle. He must, when whistled in, be 
willing to follow steadily at heel, without an endeavor to 
beat until ordered to go on, which is a point of the great- 
est consequence in snipe-shooting; for a bird which is 
marked down will often allow a man to walk close in upon 
it, which would flush wide of a dog; and, as the snipe never 
runs above a few fect from the spot into which he is 
