590 
FOREST AND STREAM 
November, 1920 
THE WIZARD OF THE WETLANDS 
AS CHANGEABLE AS THE WEATHER AND AS FICKLE AS FORTUNE 
THE JACKSNIPE AFFORDS THE PERSISTENT HUNTER SOME RARE SPORT 
J ACKSNIPE hunting, as every shooter 
will tell you, is hard work, for there 
are few game birds whose haunts are 
so inaccessible as those of the jacksnipe. 
His home is the marsh, and marshes are 
not usually the easiest of going. There 
is no waiting for them to come to the 
decoys, while sitting in a blind, as in the 
case of ducks. Each’ bird means wal- 
lowing through the mire, a hasty shot at 
the most erratic of targets, and, if the 
aim be true, more wallowing to where 
the bird has fallen, and so on to the 
end of the day’s sport. After some 
leagues of such going, and, especially if 
one has banged away many times into 
the unoffending air, fruitlessly, he feels 
tempted to swear a little at a bird which 
has so few of the characteristics of a 
real gentleman as to live in a swamp, 
and, by alighting again and again a 
few score paces away, to compel the 
hunter to flounder after him. And yet, 
with such unfaltering enthusiasm is the 
snipe hunter endowed, that, though he 
returns at night with empty shell-pock- 
ets, and game pockets in much the same 
condition, he will come back on the mor- 
row, and on as many more morrows as 
circumstances permit. Of such material 
were Frank Forester, Dr. Lewis, and T. 
B. Abbott made, men who have lauded 
jacksnipe hunting as the very acme of 
strenuous sport. But, I set out to tell 
of a day that I lately spent with the 
jacksnipe; a day that, here in the arid 
West, comes all too seldom. 
Whenever I think of jacksnipe there 
looms before me the picture of a marsh, 
that lies to the right of the river, some 
ten miles below the town which it gives 
me pleasure to call home. It contains 
a myriad of springs, which, seeping from 
a ridge of low hills, form along the base 
a marsh, about a mile in length and a 
half mile in width. The waters gather 
together in some places and form little 
rivulets that meander slowly to the river, 
and along which watercress, cattails, 
and other semi-aquatic plants grow in 
profusion. Naturally it is the hardest 
kind of hard traveling for one on shoot- 
ing bent, and an ideal place for jacksnipe. 
They find in this place of mud and water 
all they need to fill their days with a 
contentment that seems unwarranted. 
By BRYAN L. WHITEHEAD 
T HE dawn of one November day, of 
the present year, found the “Dea- 
con” and me hunting for ducks 
along the river. The Deacon is not a real 
deacon, nor even a near-deacon, but it 
is a nickname which has stuck to him 
since our high school days. He has been 
my shooting companion for many a year, 
and is one of those rare beings who can 
travel from dawn until dark, with no 
slackening of pace and no complaint, no 
matter how rough the traveling or how 
scarce the game. 
About eight inches of snow had fallen 
the day previously, and, though the 
clouds had cleared away, it was with 
high hopes of a good bag of game that 
we had set out that morning. We had 
hunted for an hour after sun-up, with 
no success, when my attention was at- 
tracted by a bird that looked suspiciously 
like a jacksnipe that dropped down on 
the other side of the river. 
“Deac,” said I, “do you know what a 
jacksnipe is?” 
“That I do,” said he. 
“Well, one just lit on the other side 
of the river; shall we gather him in?” 
The deacon assented, and we bent our 
steps toward a bridge, a quarter of a 
mile behind us, crossed the river, and 
in a short time had arrived at the place 
where I had marked down the bird. 
Below us lay the swamp, or marsh, an 
enchanting picture, covered with snow, 
and the cattails bowed down with its 
weight. To the left of us was the river, 
fringed with cottonwood trees and wil- 
lows, gaunt and leafless, each freighted 
with snow, that ever and anon slipped off 
with a soft “plup” to the drifts beiow. 
Together we advanced a score of yards, 
and we were sinking with every step to 
our knees. Luckily, both of us wore 
waders, for we were encompassed by a 
semi-liquid mass of ooze that to shanks 
even as case-hardened as ours felt colder 
than the snow itself. A few steps fur- 
ther on and a dim, small shape took to 
the air with a wild flirt of wings, and 
with a rasping cry of “scaipe, scaipe,” 
like a file scratching a piece of metal, 
it careened above the cattails. Two 
guns barked as one, but the jacksnipe 
sped on, still uttering his joyful squeak, 
as if to apprise the countryside of his 
prowess in escaping our deadly missiles. 
“Deacon,” I chided mildly, “how could 
you?” 
“How could I what?” he retorted 
swiftly. 
“Why, miss him, of course,” said I. 
“Didn’t you shoot?” he asked. 
“I heard only one report,” I assever- 
ated truthfully, “and that was yours.” 
The Deacon looked at me with suspi- 
cion, and when, a moment later, he 
caught me in the act of throwing away 
the smoking shell, he upbraided me most 
vehemently for casting all the blame for 
the bird’s escape upon him. Two other 
birds, alarmed by our voices, flushed 
wildly, but one turned and flew back 
toward us, about thirty-five yards high. 
“Take him,” said the Deacon, “I want 
to see how it is done.” Nothing loath, 
I raised the gun. I remember what a 
perfect target he presented as he sailed 
across the peaceful expanse of sky, his 
long bill, held sidewise, limned with per- 
fect clearness against the blue sky above. 
With rather a pang I thought how soon 
that small bit of life was to be extin- 
guished, those beating pinions stilled for- 
ever, — and then I pulled the trigger. At 
that precise instant the bird changed his 
course and, no whit abashed by the leaden 
pellets that passed so closely in front of 
him, dropped plummet like and alighted 
as softly as a puffball behind us. A well 
directed ball of snow caused him to again 
take wing. I blazed away with the first 
barrel, and was rewarded by seeing the 
snow fly two feet beneath him; and at 
the report of the second barrel several 
cattails in the general direction of his 
flight wilted down. The jacksnipe, 
though, rightly judging that the country 
would soon be too warm for his comfort, 
kept on going, and disappeared beyond 
the trees that lined the bank of the river. 
The Deacon, a short distance away, 
had watched the whole proceeding with 
undisguised pleasure, and with great 
aplomb and deadly precision, cut down 
two birds that a moment later flushed. 
Keeping abreast, and about thirty yards 
apart, we worked our laborious way 
toward the upper end of the marsh. As 
we progressed, birds flushed oftener. 
Now, a single would call forth a salute 
from one or both of our guns. Again, a 
pair or more were a-wing at once, while 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 618 ) 
There are few game birds whose haunts afe so inaccessible as those of the jacksnipe. 
