president’s address. 
647 
August 31st to March 1st, the then lessee (Com. Rogers. R.N.) 
voluntarily surrendering his rights upon the latter date for 
the benefit of the following year’s sport. Private tender 
was substituted for public auction in 1896. and this gave 
rise to a question which was not submitted to counsel : one 
bidder offering in his tender to give “ a pound more than 
anybody else.” Query, was this eager, cunning, would-be 
hirer’s offer a legal tender ? 
As I have said, the total extent of the common is about 
300 acres, of which a little more than half is Snipe ground, 
the remainder being comparatively high and dry, and more 
or less closely covered with furze bushes. 
When the water is right, and the litter is well cut, 
Ruston Common is still very attractive to Snipe, both 
Jack and Full. At the opening of the season, the amount of 
sport to be obtained, depends of course upon the number 
that are locally bred ; but these all depart before the end of 
September, as a general rule. The few Redshank and 
Common Plover that are bred here take their broods away 
before the end of August. 
The record bag, as far as I have been able to ascertain, is 
41 couples, made by six guns, in October, 1878. Robert 
Pye, the late host of the Butchers’ Arms, who either hired 
or managed the shooting for many years, told me that he 
one morning killed 47 Woodpigeons here before breakfast, 
and 84 Wildfowl in a single week, feeding them with brewer’s 
grains during the hard weather of 1881. 
Distance is apt to lend enlargement to the former size of 
sportsmen’s bags, and I have been unable to verify the 
reports of much former slaughter of Snipes on Ruston Fen. 
1 have looked carefully through the carefully kept 
memoranda of the late Ash Rudd, J.P., who lived in the parish 
and was an excellent Snipe shot, once killing fourteen without 
a miss. He shot on the common and on his own adjoining 
marshes more or less frequently from 1857-1880, keeping 
