UPLAND SHOOTING. 
141 
Scotia Now I am satisfied that, unless when the winter is ex¬ 
tremely short and spring unusually warm and early to the West¬ 
ward, this discrepancy is greatly overrated. 
The average commencement of Snipe-shooting, even in Dela¬ 
ware, is not earlier, I am convinced, than the first of April; and, 
except in uncommonly early seasons, they appear almost simulta¬ 
neously in New Jersey and New York. Early in April, I have 
shot these birds in abundance close to the Falls of Niagara; early 
in April I have shot them in Maine; and at the end of that same 
month, I have shot them on the upland pastures around Quebec. 
On average seasons, that is to say seasons in which the spring 
is everywhere late and backward, I have found by my own ob¬ 
servation, that the arrival both of the Woodcock and of the Snipe 
is nearly simultaneous, from Pennsylvania to Maine, and I believe 
on enquiry such will prove to be the case. 
This is, however, except as a matter of curiosity, tending to 
throw light on the breeding seasons of our bird in various places, 
and so to enable us to legislate with most advantage for his pre¬ 
servation, a matter of small importance ; for, from the moment 
of his arrival in each several locality, until that of his departure, 
he is incessantly persecuted and pursued ; and, as the causes of 
his arrival are the same in all places, so will, I apprehend, be the 
signs of his coming also. 
The next observation that I would make in this place, is to 
guard the sportsman, in the United States and Canada, from 
placing the slightest reliance on the maxims, advice or opinions 
promulgated, even in the best sporting books published in Eng¬ 
land, concerning the Snipe, or its congener the Woodcock. 
The birds are in every respect different from the European 
species, as to their habits, haunts and seasons; and one point of 
difference alone is sufficient to render all that is laid down with 
regard to the manner of hunting them there, entirely useless 
here. There they are winter, here more or less summer, birds of 
passage; so that the localities which they frequent in the two 
hemispheres are of course nearly opposite. 
Not an English book but will tell you, and tell you truly, as 
