UPLAND SHOOTING. 
143 
At such times, a few straggling birds may be picked up on 
the south side of Long Island, where the trout-streams, below 
the pond-dams, overflow the salt meadows, before a solitary 
Snipe has appeared inland. Then the salt marshes about the 
mouths of the Raritan, the Hackensac, and the Passaic, attract 
them in turn for a few days ; after which they gradually ascend 
the courses of those streams to the great tracts of morass and 
bog-meadow, which are spread out for leagues, the very Para¬ 
dise of the Snipe-shooter, especially about the last-named river. 
Here, if the weather is favorable and settled, they remain for 
many weeks ; and may be pursued with much success and sport, 
by the skilful sportsman, whatever may be the nature of the day, 
unless it has been preceded by a very sharp frost. 
The most favorable time is, undoubtedly, the first fine warm 
day after a long, easterly rain-storm ; and, so thoroughly am I 
convinced of this fact, that for many seasons, while resident in 
New York, it was my habit to order my horses, and set out on 
the third day of a north-eastern storm, if the sky showed the 
slightest prospect of clearing, before the rain had in the least 
abated. It has more than once happened to me, thus setting off 
late in the evening, while it was yet raining, to see the sky gra¬ 
dually clear up, and to hear the shrill squeak of the Snipe travel¬ 
ling overhead faster than myself, though in the same direction, 
before reaching my shooting-ground, scarce twenty miles distant; 
and I have been amply rewarded for mj r trouble by an excellent 
and undisturbed day’s sport, over meadows well stocked with 
birds, and as yet virgin of gunners. 
In such cases, it will often, however, happen that the weather 
on the one or more days which can be spared for shooting, proves 
wild, windy and unfavorable ; yet the sportsman who has trav¬ 
elled from a distance must take it as he finds it—if he reside on 
the spot he can, and of course will, pick his own days ; which, it 
he be wise, will be those soft, moist, silvery mornings, which so 
often follow slight hoar-frosts, when the heaven is covered with 
the thinnest filmy haze, through which the sunbeams are poured 
down warm but mellow, and when there is just enough of low 
VOL. i. 12 
