294 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 25, 1906. 
A Snipe Hunt. 
Slowly the dull grey in the east spread, grad¬ 
ually—almost imperceptibly—paling the bright¬ 
ness of the numerous stars, until all but one—■ 
a large twinkling body down in the western 
heavens—disappeared. Fighting foot by foot, 
inch by inch, this bright planet made a valiant 
stand, but ere the warm red rim of the rising 
sun peeped above the distant horizon, the battle 
had been lost, and there remained nothing in the 
broad blue expanse overhead to dispute his 
majesty’s supremacy. 
Interesting as this spectacle had been, there 
drifted down to us on the early morning breeze 
the sharp shrill whistling of a bunch of small 
yellowlegs we promptly forgot the troubles and 
affairs of our celestial neighbors, and strained 
our eyes to locate the birds. Soon we saw them, 
a dozen or more, off to the east, and as • we 
crouched low behind the blind, the-seductive call¬ 
ing of W., my companion, enticed them our way. 
Noticing our stool in the shallow salt pond, the 
whole bunch wheeled, and as they hovered with 
their long legs dangling, the old nruzzleloader 
was thrust through an opening in the blind, and 
at the report three birds dropped, one dead and 
the other two only wing-broken. Scattering in 
all directions they soon reformed; and by the 
time the old gun was reloaded, skillful calling 
had again turned them our way, and attracted 
by the wounded birds and the decoys, they came 
within gunshot and were again raked by the 
shot, this time two of their number falling into 
the water. 
Heeding not the pleading calling of W., the 
survivors scuttled off, and we watched them dis¬ 
appear in the haze to the southwest. Then I 
waded out to retrieve the fallen birds, but before 
I had the last of them picked up, W. called to 
hurry back as another bunch was coming, so I 
splashed back on the double quick, wetting my¬ 
self almost to the waist in so doing. I was, how¬ 
ever, none too quick, for another bunch of birds 
was coming directly toward us. Again the se¬ 
ductive whistling of W. brought them hovering 
over the decoys; again the old gun was poked 
through the opening in the blind; again there 
was the loud crashing report and several birds 
dropped from the bunch; again my companion 
nervously poured a charge of powder down the 
long barrel, while I handed him a wad and pre¬ 
pared a good sized charge of shot from the bottle 
in which the latter was carried. But this flock 
was wiser than the preceding one; no amount of 
calling could induce them to return, and we 
strained our eyes as we watched them disappear 
in the haze. 
Thus is continued for several hours, flock 
after flock coming to our blind and paying more 
or less toll from their numbers, until we had a 
goodly pile of birds heaped in the shade behind 
the blind, but still there was no let up. Hear¬ 
ing the shrill whistling of another flock, we both 
ducked under cover; on came the birds until 
close to the stool; slowly the old gun was poked 
through an opening and—‘‘You blasted fools, 
what’s the matter with you? I have been blow¬ 
ing the horn and calling you for the last half 
hour, and now breakfast is cold waiting for you.” 
Slowly my senses returned, and glancing about 
I was surprised to see, instead of my boy chum 
of years ago, the bewhiskered face of my friend 
M.—a gunning friend of recent years—grinning 
as sheepishly as a country yokel. My surprise was 
still greater to find attached to my body; instead 
of the mud-bespattered, sun-burned bare legs of 
a boy, a pair of long sturdy limbs encased in hip 
boots, and leaning against the blind in a con¬ 
venient place, not the old muzzleloader, but two- 
light modern hammerless guns. Then it flashed 
through my mind that the pair of us had fallen 
asleep, and I had been dreaming of the days 
long past when snipe of all kinds were .plentiful 
and a couple of boys with an old muzzleloader 
and a few decoys could frequently kill from one 
to two or more dozen small yellowlegs in an 
hour or so, and a single bird was rarely fired at. 
Another tirade from C. (whose hospitality we 
were enjoying and who had been good enough 
to remain at the shanty to cook breakfast) 
brought both of us to our feet and we prepared 
to follow him back to the shanty for breakfast. 
Glancing, half expectantly, at the corner where I 
had piled the dream birds, I saw not a single 
specimen large or small, and slowly I followed 
the others across the marsh, but somehow I had 
lost all interest in snipe shooting, and for the rest of 
the day I must indeed have made a dull com¬ 
panion. 
It was early morning, and as we ate break¬ 
fast, we could look far across the marsh; and 
in general appearance I could see very little 
change from the old days. There was the same 
salty smell of the sedge; the heat waves rose 
from the marsh and distorted distant objects in 
the same old way; the mosquitoes and the green 
flies were just as plentiful and voracious; the 
song of the seaside finches and the occasional 
clatter of a meadow hen had not in any way 
changed; while a belated quawk heavily winging 
its way to a patch of woods off across the marsh, 
helped the mind travel back over the lapse of 
time. Again I am a boy toting the old single 
muzzleloader around the marsh; again I can see 
the countless bunches of ox-eyes and ring-necks 
nervously flitting from pond to pond, with 
enough of the larger birds—yellowlegs, plover 
and dowitchers—interspersed to make things in¬ 
teresting. But my reverie is rudely disturbed, 
for around the bend of the nearby creek comes 
a noisy chugging launch, and I find it difficult 
to associate its occupant, lazily reclining in the 
stern, with the spritsail, or the more strenuous 
“white ash breeze” of twenty years ago; and for 
the first time there is borne in upon me the re¬ 
alization that the times have changed. No 
longer the sand dunes of our beaches- are the 
exclusive resort of the curlew and the plover; 
no longer the meadows and marshes are the home 
of the yellowleg and the dowitcher. The dis¬ 
tant horizon is now pierced and distorted by the 
gables and turrets of summer cottage and hotel, 
while the calls of the denizens of the marsh have 
been replaced by the chug-chugging of the motor 
boats. 
And the snipe, where are they? Have they 
followed our companions of bygone days, the 
bare-footed, bare-legged' boys, the old muzzle- 
MR. W. C. WITHERBEE S PRIZE MOOSE HEAD. 
