OCTOBER, 1917 
FOREST AND STREAM 
461 
flight, I tried that on dozens of snipe. On 
each occasion, after they got past the thirty 
yard line, they began to indulge in such 
unseemly, dazzling gyrations, that I not 
only found it next to impossible to hold my 
gun sight, but equally as difficult to keep 
my eye on them. And those easy crossing 
birds were not extant in that flight of jacks. 
They may, I admit, have at other times 
visited these marshes, but as I vividly re¬ 
call to mind my hunt, I am positive that 
all the easy crossing birds must have taken 
in another zone. If any were that day on 
these marshes I am sure I failed to dis¬ 
cover a single one—though I searched very 
industriously. 
“Mac,”—I decided to confide my doubts 
about the experts’ theories on the subject 
of snipe shooting—“my shooting don’t work 
out according to books. Now, Mac, I am 
brave, tell me what’s the trouble?” 
“There, forget all you have ever read!” 
he returned, brutally shocking my pet the¬ 
ories. “Do as I do.” 
of a redtop slash. Every once in a while 
I heard his twenty bark maliciously as he 
took a pass shot. But I continued to wade 
up the swales, and secured a number of 
birds. For one solid hour my gun was 
kept constantly warm, and when I re¬ 
joined Mac I was glad of the opportunity 
to sit down for a while and rest. 
Drawing off my boots I poured out the 
water that I had taken in, while overstep¬ 
ping their limits in the little drainage 
ditches. My feet were soaking wet. Fun¬ 
ny, how the sport of a thing will make such 
an occurrence escape your mind—especially 
so at the time ! 
Toward noon we sloshed wearily in the 
direction of Mac’s shanty. The third Nig¬ 
ger Field had yet to be hunted. That year 
the middle slash had been in corn, and had 
only been subjected to inundation since the 
recent abundant rains. The cover was ex¬ 
ceedingly sparse; and owing to this it was 
the first marsh where we found the birds 
wild. Here they flushed at unusually long 
dot against the clear sky. Then to the sur¬ 
prise of both of us that bird veered ab¬ 
ruptly, and instead of pitching down as is 
their want, he turned three fancy circles 
and volplaned into a cotton field. 
“He’s dead as a door nail!” exclaimed 
Mac gleefully. 
“You did get it, if he did fall slightly 
out of bounds!” I added, somewhat per¬ 
plexed at the unconventional behavior of 
that jack. “Do you think that you can find 
him ?” 
“That’s easy—just keep looking down be¬ 
tween cotton rows. I got him marked.” 
With any other person such a procedure 
on the face of it would have been destitute 
of reward. But Mac could mark dead birds 
with uncanny accuracy. I had more than 
once witnessed him, not only on the snipe 
marshes, but in quail shooting frequently 
he had displayed as much skill as a dog. 
Smilingly my eye followed Mac, waddling 
off into the cotton. I then hunted down 
the marsh, having agreed to meet him at 
From the American Museum of Natural History. 
“How?” 
“Why, snap-shoot them all!” 
“But—” 
“That’s just your fault—you are always 
waiting for them to straighten out before 
shooting, thinking you can solve the kink 
of their twist. Now there’s where you are 
wrong—crack it to them before they ever 
get a chance to twist!” 
Mac was right. Before long I learnt to 
snap at them without jerking the trigger 
before they attained their dazzling flight. 
This solved the enigma of snipe shooting, 
and even when birds flushed at a goodly 
distance I met with success. By the time 
we were through the first Nigger Field I 
was holding Mac even with kills. 
The day was rapidly turning warm. The 
birds showed it in their tendency to wait 
until we nearly tramped on them before 
taking flight. Mac said he was tired of 
pulling th mud, and settled down in a po¬ 
sition old elm tree in the midst 
range. Both of us attempted the long shots 
unsuccesssfully. And on one spot I saw 
Mac miss three straightaways at a goodly 
distance, then pick a blue wing teal ap- 
perently out of the clouds. It did not im¬ 
press one as possible that his little twenty 
could send such small shot as eights at that 
distance with sufficient velocity to kill. 
As we drew on to the end of Third Nig¬ 
ger Field some swamp grass was in evi¬ 
dence. Birds laid closer. 
Mac came to me as the narrowing of the 
wet area ocasioned. A jack darted up at 
his feet, quartering to the right. To all in¬ 
dications he missed with the first barrel; 
and the waiting an instant too long Mr. 
Scalopax proceeded at a speedier clip under 
the urge offthe second cartridge. 
Up went that jack in the air, whistling a 
defiant scaip, and beating straight north. 
With a gloomy visage Mac watched him, 
climbing up the invisible flight ladder until 
half a mile off he was but a moving black 
the junction of another swale with the road 
home. 
Came now the time when I happened on 
my obdurate snipe. Hardly had I pro¬ 
ceeded twenty yards when a sluggish, in¬ 
different flier was put up. I sent the con¬ 
tents of the first barrel at him. He 
dropped to earth. I thought sure that he 
was dead. I walked over to him. Up he 
got, racing shrilly in flight—against wind, 
mind you, and on my left. I knocked him 
down with the load in the second barrel. I 
strode over to him leisurely, feeling that 
this time his death had been accomplished. 
As I stooped to pick him up that obdurate 
bird, from a seemingly lifeless creature flut¬ 
tered a few seconds, found its feet, ran 
about ten paces, and jumped into fast flight 
—as though it had had no experience with 
a gunner. 
I waited until that snipe got thirty yards, 
and held closer than I usually do on birds. 
(continued on page 485) 
