342 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
regards the English Snipe, that the most favorable weather for 
the sport is dark, blowing, drizzling days—the very worst con¬ 
ceivable for our bird ; which is apt to be as wild as a Hawk in 
windy weather, while it will sometimes lie till it is difficult to 
kick it up, on bright, warm, sunny days, with the wind southerly. 
But of this anon. 
In the first place, observe, as regards the arrival of Snipe on 
the meadows, that it matters not how fair and mild and warm 
the weather may be, or may have been for many days, overhead, 
not a bird will be found until the subterranean frost and ice have 
been entirely dissipated ; which is rarely the case until after a 
three days’ storm of rain, with a stiff easterly blow, succeeded by 
soft, spring-like weather. 
It must here be remarked that, in morasses and bog meadows, 
whether fresh or salt, the underground frost lasts much longer 
unthawed than it does on the uplands. In one instance, I re¬ 
member finding all the meadows as hard as ice below some six 
inches of soft mud, when the frost had disappeared for many 
days on the uplands, and when the progress of spring was evident 
in the bursting buds and springing grass. Of course not a bird 
was to be found. 
The first of the winged harbingers of spring is the beautiful 
little Blue-Bird; and so soon as he has taken up his residence 
with us, and commenced cleaning out his accustomed-box, or pre¬ 
paring materials for his nest in the hole of a decayed apple-tree, 
we may be sure that the Snipe is not far distant. When the 
buds of the willow trees display their yellowish verdure, and the 
chirping croak of the frogs rises from every swampy pond, we 
may feel confident that he is to be found on the meadows ; but 
not until the Shad is abundant at the mouths of our rivers, is the 
Snipe plentiful on the inland morasses. 
On his first arrival, he generally hangs for two or three days 
in small whisps, or, oftener yet, scattered individually, along the 
salt meadows on the coast, especially in places where fresh 
springs boil up from the ground, or spring-brooks trickle down 
from the upland. 
