138 



FIELD SHOOTING. 



at all, save when put up by a noise like that of 

 their own squeak. That is the only way to make 

 them rise, and their flight is lazy and slow. 

 Those which remain after the first of May are 

 then so fat that they can hardly fly at all, and 

 when they are picked at this time they look like 

 a lump of fat bacon. When not over-fat, snipe 

 fly swift. They hang on the wind for an instant, 

 and then dart away zigzag up-wind or across the 

 wind. I have several times killed two with one 

 barrel, and on one occasion I killed three. It was 

 in Logan County, as I was walking along the 

 bank of a little slough. The three snipe got up 

 in line, the nearest within twenty yards, and they 

 all three fell to the right barrel. When they first 

 come in the spring, it is difficult to shoot snipe in 

 the corn-fields. They dodge about among the 

 stalks, and rarely rise over the tops of them. A 

 man who kills three out of four in the corn-fields 

 at that time is a good shot. In shooting over 

 the bottom-land it is best for two guns to be in 

 company, and to walk down-wind some thirty or 

 forty yards apart. Nearly all the birds may then 

 be got. The shooters will bo nearly certain to kill 

 all the birds that rise between them, if they arc 

 good shots. In shooting at snipe it is a great 



