140 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
it is very possible that a stranger, coming from a distance to shoot 
will find the meadows which were yesterday alive with Snipe, 
entirely deserted, and vice versa. 
Still there are signs and tokens both of the weather and of the 
animal creation—temperatures of the former and coincidences of 
the latter—by which the observant sportsman may come at con¬ 
clusions, even at a distance from his ground, and seldom errone¬ 
ously, concerning the arrival and sojourn of Snipe. 
And again, the birds have habits and haunts, during various 
aspects and sudden changes of weather, a thorough knowledge of 
which will enable one sportsman to fill his bag, while another on 
the same ground shall make up his mind in despair, that there are 
no Snipe on the meadows. 
There is no bird whose habits I have studied more closely than 
those of the Snipe, more especially during his vernal visit to our 
part of the country, for w^hich my residence, nearly adjoining the 
very finest Snipe-ground, as I believe it even yet to be, in the world, 
has given me great facilities ; and I have it in my power to point 
out one or two peculiarities—tending, by the way, more com¬ 
pletely to distinguish it from the European species—which have 
escaped the observation of our great American naturalists, Wilson 
and Audubon. 
I have, moreover, shot them from Delaware southward, to 
Quebec, in the north; and from the Niagara River to the coun¬ 
try about the Penobscot; so that I have not been without oppor 
tunity of becoming acquainted in some degree with their habits, 
throughout the whole geographical area of their spring and 
autumn migration; and here I would state, though with much 
deference, as becomes one differing from so high an authority, 
that neither in this nor in any other of our migratory birds of 
Game is there so much difference with regard to the time of their 
arrival and departure within the limits I have named, as Mr. 
Audubon would make. 
That eloquent writer and accurate observer, states the arrival 
of this bird to be a month later, varying with the season, in 
Maine than in Pennsylvania j and ten days later yet in Nova 
