On the 
Snipe 
Meadows 
By ‘‘SJACK”’ 
tridge season in Michigan closed. 
Not being rabbit hunters, and 
wanting to go shooting we decided to 
try my favorite game bird, the Wilson 
snipe. The flight locally had passed, 
and while not very hopeful, marshes 
near Grand Haven were decided upon 
for mixed shooting. 
My partner shoots a 16 gauge Le- 
fevre and I a 20 gauge Parker. 
assistant was a handsome black and 
white setter, daughter of “Champion” 
Mallwyd Mixture, a fine retriever 
broken on all game. 
After voting the next morning, an 
hour’s drive and we were in the boat 
at Lloyd’s Bayou. It was a beautiful, 
sunny day with no wind; an ideal day 
for snipe. 
While arranging our guns and shells 
three ducks were observed on the river 
side of the bayou. A short row up the 
Channel and I got out, leaving Harry 
to make a wide detour and crowd the 
ducks within shooting distance. After 
some maneuvering the ducks swam to- 
wards the shore and about 30 yards 
from me. Raising up out of the cat 
tails the ducks saw me and jumped. 
Two came over to come tumbling down; 
the third circled around the bayou, and 
a long shot from the 16 brought it down 
with a broken wing and it was shot 
again before it could dive. We found 
upon examination that they were can- 
vas backs, a male and two females, 
handsome, plump birds, unusual for 
this section. Soon June was pointing; 
she surely looked beautiful crouched 
low, tail high, from a clump of grass. 
We jumped a green wing teal which 
was also added to the bag. 
Te fall of 1918 found the par- 
RIGHT here we were busy. The 
jacks in the cat tails were plentiful 
enough to make the shooting good. A 
Page 591 
Our - 

A dog, a gun and an Autumn day! 
bird would rise with a startled “scaipe’”’ 
and collapse at the crack of the gun, 
giving us all snap shots which were 
killed quickly or missed clean. 
We finished the day working the cat 
tails and wild rice, finding more birds 
than we expected. In the morning we 
worked a strip of low land adjoining 
the river; muddy flats covered with cat 
tails, marsh grass and wild rice, with 
pools of water here and there, in places 
surrounded by reeds that grew to a 
height of 10 feet or more. Here we 
found the shooting excellent. The jacks, 
if missed, would invariably come back 
within a short time. While standing by 
a clump of cat tails watching a snipe 
in the air, I heard the call of a yellow 
leg, which was surprising owing to the 
lateness of the season. High up came 
the bird,'an incomer, which, as the load 
caught it, drifted down 60 yards away, 
struck a cat tail, which burst, sending 
the down in all directions. 
M*Y companion’s gun was busy at the 
other end of the marsh and I knew 
that he was having good shooting. Often 
while shooting at birds that were top- 
ping the flags, the scattering shot 
would strike cat tails that would burst 
and fill the air with silky down. 
Working back, June banged into a 
point by a clump of reeds. I flushed a 
snipe that flew low, shot in the head. 
This bird towered and fell not twenty 
feet from me. The dog in going 
through the marsh grass to retrieve, 
jumped a black duck that at the crack 
of the nitro fell back into the reeds, 
flushing another duck not twenty yards 
from me, which came tumbling back 
when the twenty caught it. The dog 
had some trouble in finding this duck 
which was hard hit and had crawled in 
under some fallen reeds. June brought 
it out stone dead. 
A Game Fellow 
Is This 
Long-Billed Dodger 
of the 
Marshes—Do You 
Know 
Him Intimately 
I was joined by Harry who wanted to 
know the cause of the cannonading and 
was very much pleased when he saw 
the pair of black ducks. On working 
our way to the river bank we nearly 
stepped on a rabbit hidden in a clump 
of grass. A quick snap brought it to 
bag, which was surely a mixed one, 
a pair of black ducks, a yellow leg, a 
rabbit, and last but not least, a good 
bunch of Wilson’s snipe. 
THE following morning we went up 
the river driving from one marsh to 
another. Nothing unusual happened 
until we struck Robinson’s. Here the 
dog pointed in some brush out into the 
marsh. We flushed about a dozen 
ruffed grouse, one of which flew up 
into a sapling and did not offer to fly, 
until we shook the tree. 
We went into the marsh bagging a 
snipe now and then. The dog worked 
up into a clump of willows that grew 
in the marsh, hesitated, then pointed. 
We flushed a woodcock which fell to 
Harry’s gun. In this willow patch we 
got two’ more points on woodcock of 
which one fell to each gun. 
HILE working a hay marsh op- 
posite Bruce’s Bayou the dog, 
crossing the wagon road, pointed, out 
of a low place in one of the ruts. Three 
snipe flushed, two of which were killed; 
the third circled high up and finally 
dropped like a bullet and lit in the same 
place from where it was flushed. This 
bird allowed us to walk almost up to 
it before flying. It was an easy shot 
and joined the others in my coat. 
While lighting a cigarette we heard 
bells ringing and whistles blowing. 
Wondering what it was all about, a 
farmer told us the war was over. This 
we found to be true, for the evening we 
(Continued on page 625) 
