264 
SCOLOPACID^E. 
fluctuate greatly in different years, and are never sufficient to account 
for the number which sometimes appear in August, in which month as 
many snipes may sometimes be killed as at any time of the year.” — 
Vol. ii. p. 604. 
Towards the month of October, the birds that remain with ns 
arrive from the north.* They are said to winter in Tory Island, 
off Donegal, though not to breed there.t They are found indeed 
generally at that season, on petty islets around the coast. 
S7iipe-s/iootmg. — Daily Mights . — The shooting of snipes, as 
such, is generally considered inferior sport to that of other birds 
which claim the sportsmans attention, but theh abundance in 
Ireland greatly exceeding that of the others, is considered a 
kind of equivalent, and, accordingly, they are very eagerly 
sought after. 
The twisting flight of the snipe, which generally proceeds 
against the wind, leads persons to believe that it is the most 
difficult of birds to shoot ; but this is very much a matter 
of practice. A sportsman, accustomed to snipe-shooting, will 
kill as many of these birds at a certain number of shots as of any 
others indeed, I remember one who, although from practice 
a capital snipe shot,^'’ on going, for the first time, in pursuit of 
partridges, could not hit one of them. Mr. Poole remarks his 
* Mr. St. John has observed with respect to the month of October in Moray- 
shire : — “ Immediately on the retiring of a flood in the river [Findhorn], great 
numbers of snipes are seen on the mud and refuse left by the water, feeding busily. 
Where they come from it is difficult to say, as at this season, except on those occa- 
sions, we have no great abundance of these birds.”* In Northumberland, according 
to Mr. Selby, they arrive in the greatest number early in November. The history 
of the snipe given by the latter author is full and admirable. 
I may hei’e remark (though rather out of place) that the observations of Mr. St. 
John would apply to Ireland throughout the later portion of autumn and the entire 
winter. Persons living in the neighbom’hood of rivers and lakes know with certainty 
when and how long, according to the locality, they will obtain snipes after the land 
nas been flooded. In some places the flood subsides so rapidly, that these birds will 
only be met with for one day, but in others, w'hence the water retires slowly and leaves 
a great extent of residuum, they may be found for upwards of a week. 
t Mr. G. C. Hyndman. 
f; I have been told of thirty-two birds having been killed by a northern marquis 
at that number of successive shots. 
‘ Tour in Sutherland,’ &c., vol. ii, p. 8. 
