UPLAND SHOOTING. 
165 
it manifest the slightest inclination to alight on fence, rail, log 
or tree. I therefore, suppose these habits to be, like drumming, 
peculiar to the season, and analogous to the circling and strut¬ 
ting of Doves, the fan-tailing of Peacocks, and the like. I 
should be curious to learn, however, from my Southern friends, 
who kill them during the winter in far greater numbers on 
their Georgia and Carolina rice fields than we can pretend to 
do on our barren bog meadows, whether they are ever known 
there either to take to woodland coverts, or to tree. 
The English Snipe, I am certain, never does either, both from 
my own experience, and from the observation of many older 
and better sportsmen than myself. I have shot the English 
bird constantly, and for several successive springs, in the fens 
of Cambridge and Norfolk ; and I have heard him drum there 
more frequently than I have here, but I never heard him chat¬ 
ter, or saw him take the tree ; and I am certain that he never 
does so. 
While speaking on this subject I must observe, again re¬ 
spectfully differing from Mr. Audubon, who asserts that “ there 
is as great a difference between the notes of the English and 
American species of Snipe, as there is between the American 
Crow and the Carrion Crow of Europe,” that in my opinion 
the cry of the two Snipes is 'perfectly identical; and in this 
view I am corroborated by the judgment of several English 
sportsmen, with whom I have habitually shot for many seasons 
here, and who, like myself, had killed Hundreds of couples of 
Snipe, before visiting America. The number of feathers in the 
tail of the European and American species differs; and I am 
nearly certain that the English bird is somewhat larger and 
heavier—Wilson, who first distinguished the two species, noti¬ 
ces the difference in size—but otherwise in appearance, and 
in all their ordinary habits, they are identical. I lay, how¬ 
ever, great stress on the difference of note, in the breeding 
season, and in the other peculiarities alluded to, as setting the 
question of variety on a much broader and more distinct base, 
