THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
they may often be found in turnip and potato fields if the weather is 
wet. After the middle of October foreign snipe begin to appear on 
our shores, the bulk of them reaching their haunts during the last 
week in October and the first week in November, after which a few 
continue to arrive throughout the month. By the system of attaching 
a marked and registered ring to young snipe, which has been done with 
success to young woodcock during recent years, much information is 
likely to be gained as to the lines of their migration. Even when arrived at 
their favourite haunts they are very uncertain in their movements, here 
to-day and gone to-morrow, and much affected in their choice of feeding 
ground by the age of the moon, especially in the vicinity of moors and bogs. 
After a light night, too, they lie better the next day, having been able 
to feed to repletion, but after a dark night, when they have been restricted 
in finding food, they are busy feeding during the early part of the following 
day, and are much more likely to be restless, and observe from afar the 
approach of the shooter. 
In every locality there are certain spots where there is invariably a 
snipe to be found, frequently within a yard or two of the same tuft of rushes, 
and as often as the occupant is shot another takes its place, in a similar 
manner as trout take up favourite haunts in a stream directly they 
become vacant. Such places should always be visited, and anyone knowing 
the locality well can often save both time and trouble by going from one 
favourite spot to another. 
During hard frosts they frequent tidal estuaries, and sometimes congre- 
gate there in immense numbers. On January 26, 1907, the writer when 
travelling by train in the midst of a very hard frost, had the fortune to 
observe such a gathering of snipe alongside the Humber, and thus recorded 
the circumstance in his diary. 
“ The tide was at its highest, and quantities of snipe were seen feeding 
close by the train. They kept rising into the air, a dozen at a time, as each 
wavelet reached them, and then alighting again ran along, prodding 
their bills into the mud of the estuary, until the next wavelet arrived. 
The constant rising, almost like a flock of starlings when feeding, was 
curious to watch, whilst many waded in the water where it was shallow, 
feeding all the time. There must have been hundreds of snipe, for they 
appeared in equally great numbers for fully a mile. Then not one was 
to be seen, so there must needs have been some peculiar food at that 
particular place, which had tempted them to collect in such crowds.” 
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