270 SHORE BIRDS 



shooting grounds to have some local sportsman tele- 

 graph when the snipe are on the grounds. The first 

 warm, settled weather in the spring will bring the 

 snipe to the meadows. It was until recently every- 

 where the fashion to shoot snipe in the spring. While 

 the sport is not so barbarous and cruel as the shooting 

 of the woodcock in summer, since the snipe have not 

 nested and there are no young birds, it has neverthe- 

 less been thought desirable to stop the spring shoot- 

 ing, and- in many States there are laws prohibiting it. 



The frost seems to leave the uplands much earlier 

 than the lowlands. Early in the season, therefore, 

 when the snipe first arrive, there may be none on the 

 low-lying meadows, their favorite ground, and many 

 birds on fields, especially cornfields, higher up. I once 

 tramped an entire morning early in the season over 

 one of the best snipe grounds in Indiana — a low, wet 

 prairie with a slough winding about through its centre 

 — and failed to find a single bird. I was certain the 

 birds had arrived, since I had found them a few days 

 before on some meadows near the village where I was 

 stopping. Late in the day, in despair, I asked a coun- 

 try boy if he knew where the snipe were. I little ex- 

 pected any information from him, but after describing 

 the bird, he directed me to a cornfield on higher 

 ground, and advised that I enter the field from a lane 

 which passed it, and at a certain point where there was a 

 depression in the field. Following his advice, I climbed 

 the rail fence, and as I entered the field several snipe 

 arose but a few feet ahead of me, and, without stop- 

 ping to pick up a bird or moving from my place, I 

 killed a half dozen birds ; and in less than two hours 1 



