Snipe and Quail Shooting in Australia 
In August—just before the opening of our 
spring—when you are sauntering along a se¬ 
cluded and quiet creek bank, looking for a 
pair or two of plump rabbits, you will be sud¬ 
denly startled by the sharp whirr of a pair of 
wings. A brown, long-billed bird has gotten 
up a few yards in front of you, and its curious 
zig-zag flight, as it goes rapidly away, pro¬ 
claims the first snipe of the season. For our 
snipe is a migrant. Last fall, in March or 
April, the snipe have set off north, on their 
long trip of some 6,000 miles to Japan and 
Eastern Siberia. There they have bred; and 
in August, when the young birds were strong 
enough for their long, sustained southern 
flight, they all departed for the south. Passing 
the Philippines, Borneo and the New Guinea 
Isles, they come straight on to Australia, and 
once reaching the continent, they work their 
way right across it, from north to south. 
When the last of them reach the State of Vic¬ 
toria, in the extreme south, a few of them 
even cross Bass straits to the island of Tas¬ 
mania. 
It is a wonderful flight for such a bird. For, 
curiously enough, the snipe, after his arrival 
here, does not indulge in long flights. Per¬ 
haps he is resting after his long, migratory 
journey. Possibly he does not like exposing 
himself too much in the day time, as his enemy, 
the hawk, is so often on the watch for him. 
Whatever may be the reason, the snipe, when 
put up by the sportsman or his dog, flies no 
distance before descending to the earth again. 
We expect our first snipe visitors in August; 
but it is usually September before they can be 
found in an quantity. 
A spring morning in October, when the dew 
is still on the young grass, and the first wild 
flowers are showing themselves after the 
frosts, is the time for snipe shooting. A slight 
breeze, to carry the scent, is advisable. Then, 
walking up the wind, along the river flats, 
with a good dog, you should get some splendid 
shooting. If it is early enough, there will 
be plenty of rabbits about. But, if snipe 
are wanted, you are certain to neglect the 
cottontails, who hop off into the reed-beds, or 
the patches of bracken that margin the creek. 
Your dog has to be good and well trained, or 
he will not be able to resist a dash after the 
cottontails. If the winter has been a really 
wet one, with the flood waters out on {he flats 
for a week or two, you will have ideal con¬ 
ditions for snipe. The marshy flats will be 
soft, full of worms and other sub-aquatic life; 
and if you look closely down you are certain 
to see deep little holes—made by the snipe’s 
long bill—here and there, often very close to¬ 
gether, where he has been prospecting for his 
breakfast. 
Then, as you look up, some twenty yards 
ahead of you, the dog is at a full point, mo¬ 
tionless. with his head stretched out, and his 
tail quivering. And you have hardly cocked 
your gun before there is the loud whirr, and 
off go a pair of beauties. It is a good right 
and left; but it is the opening of the season, 
and your eye has not regained its last season’s 
accuracy as yet, so that one bird is all that 
can be gathered. Still, it is a beginning. The 
flats are now not so bare as they were a little 
back. There are plenty of bunches of long 
grass; some of it last year’s—old and dry—and 
some of it the fresh green growth of the last 
three or four weeks. You have hardly re¬ 
loaded, when a solitary bird gets up. It is 
rather a long shot; but the left barrel—a full 
choke—does the business. And so the morn¬ 
ing speeds on. 
I like these early spring mornings among 
the snipe better than any other shooting. It 
is only half-an-hour’s walk from my home to 
a long stretch of winding river flats, where 
you are sure to find snipe if they are in the 
country at all. The river winds picturesquely 
along the far edge of the flats, and its south¬ 
ern bank is high and rugged—sheltering the 
flats from the cold south winds. Some morn¬ 
ings, in the course of less than three hours’ 
shooting, I have bagged twenty brace of snipe. 
But these have been my red-letter days. I am 
quite contented if I return home with half-a- 
dozen brace. 
And it is pretty shooting. Here and there 
are clumps of eucalyptus trees—with low, 
spreading branches almost hiding their thick 
boles; and mingled among these trees are 
clumps of shrubs, with here and there a patch 
of tall, coarse reeds, where a hollow has re¬ 
tained the flood waters. The snipe seem to 
know the value of trees, shrubs and reeds as 
cover. If they are near to any of them, they 
dash lound them in the twinkling of an eye, 
and are soon out of sight. I take a pride in 
frustrating these unsportsmanlike tactics; and 
many is the cunning old snipe I have cut off 
just as he thought he had reached a sanctuary. 
Alas! also, truth to tell, many is the long-bill 
who has beaten me in his race for life, and has 
lived to return once more to sunny Japan and 
chuckle over the feat. Curiously enough our 
snipe, though bearing an Australian name— 
Gallinago australis —is a Japanese bird; that is, 
if a bird belongs, as it should do, to the coun¬ 
try where it breeds. The chief breeding-home 
of this snipe are the sides of the Japanese 
mountain Fujiyama. 
Snipe shooting is a spring sport. While you 
are indulging in it you are certain to come 
across plenty of wild duck, water-hens, 
plovers, members of the wading family, all 
busy nesting and rearing their young. The 
ideal autumn, or end of summer sport, is quail 
shooting. The quail is a thoroughly 
Australian bird. In a way it is a migrant, as 
it wanders great distances in search of food, 
and does this in companies. But it never, so 
far as is known, leaves the country altogether. 
There are about a score of different varieties 
of quail: and some, such as the little king 
quail, are so small as not to be worth shoot¬ 
ing. But the sportsman’s quail is known as 
the stubble quail, and by scientists as Coturnix 
pectoralis. 
The quail spend the winter, for the most 
part, in the uplands and interior of the coun¬ 
try, where the weather is always balmy. In 
the beginning of spring they commence to 
wander south, and during August, September 
and October they are busy nesting. The grass 
and grain crops are then high and thick; and, 
deep in their seclusion, the quail nests and lays 
her large clutch of eight or ten, or even a 
dozen eggs. When the young leave the nest 
the long grass protects them from birds of 
prey, though the foxes account for a good 
many. Still, the quail is such a prolific breeder 
that I do not notice any diminution of their 
numbers. By the end of the summer the 
broods are all well grown and able to look 
after themselves. To secure this end, the 
close season in my State does not end until 
March 31, so that the quail are given every 
chance. 
My favorite quail country is a series of open, 
undulating, treeless paddocks bordering a 
group of lovely lakes. It is sheep country, 
and as it is always lightly stocked, there is 
usually plenty of fairly-long, dry grass to 
afford cover for the birds. Unlike snipe shoot¬ 
ing, which, to my mind, is best pursued alone, 
quail shooting is the better for company. 
Usually, therefore, I have a friend; and with 
our two good dogs we spend the whole day 
in the field. Seasonal conditions, such as the 
early ripening of the grass, early rains and 
cold weather, influence the quail considerably. 
But, given a good summer, no rain or cold 
weather, we are certain of excellent sport. 
Our record, obtained a few seasons ago, was 
212 brace in the one day to two guns. 
The quail, unlike the snipe, flies straight 
away; but he gets up with such a buzz, that 
even old shooters are often a trifle discon¬ 
certed at the noise. Misses, however, are far 
less frequent than with snipe; and I have fired 
as many as a dozen consecutive shots, with a 
bird each time. This has of course been 
bettered, but it is still fairly good. The quail 
get up sometimes singly or in pairs; but if 
they are plentiful whisps of three to five or 
more are very common. With two guns some 
very pretty rights and lefts are then afforded. 
The quail is an easy bird to stop, and if there 
is no wind blowing and the cover is good 
enough to enable you to almost walk them 
up, dust-shot may be used, at any rate in the 
first barrel. 
We have some beautiful weather at the end 
of summer, and throughout autumn. Jn 
autumn we have sometimes what you call an 
Indian summer, when it is a delight just to 
walk through the fields. Occasionally, even 
with good dogs, I find the quail run a long 
way before they get up, and a wounded quail 
will sometimes be found quite a distance from 
where it fell. Indeed, without a dog, you are 
certain to lose quite a number of birds. One 
