ll green all the winter through); the edible chestnut sheds leaves of
a dark fawn hue, but all, scattered by the winds, presently resolve into
a black pulp upon the earth. Noting these signs the sportsman gets out
his dust-shot for the snipe, and the farmer, as he sees the fieldfare
flying over after a voyage from Norway, congratulates himself that last
month was reasonably dry, and enabled him to sow his winter seed.

'Sceap--sceap!' and very often the snipe successfully carries out the
intention expressed in his odd-sounding cry, and does escape in reality.
Although I could not at first put my theory into practice, yet I found
by experience that it was correct. He is the exception to the golden
rule that the safest way lies in the middle, and that therefore you
should fire not too soon nor too late, but half-way between. But the
snipe must either be knocked over the instant he rises from the ground,
and before he has time to commence his puzzling zig-zag flight, or else
you must wait till he has finished his corkscrew burst.

Then there is a moment just before he passes out of range when he glides
in a straight line and may be hit. This singular zig-zag flight so
deceives the eye as almost to produce the idea of a spiral movement. No
barrel can ever be jerked from side to side swiftly enough, no
hair-trigger is fine enough, to catch him then, except by the chance of
a vast scattering over-charge, which has nothing to do with sport. If he
rises at some little distance, then fire instantly, because by the time
the zig-zag is done the range will be too great; if he starts up under
your feet, out of a bunch of rushes, as is often the case, then give him
law till his eccentric twist is finished.

When the smoke has cleared away in the crisp air, there he lies, the yet
warm breast on the frozen ground, to be lifted up not without a passing
pity and admiration. The brown feathers are exquisitely shaded, and so
exactly resemble the hue of the rough dead aquatic grass out of which he
sprang that if you cast the bird among it you will have some trouble to
find it again. To discover a living snipe on the ground is indeed a test
of good eyesight; for as he slips in and out among the brown withered
flags and the grey grass it requires not only a quick eye but the inbred
sportsman's instinct of perception (if such a phrase is permissible) to
mark him out.

If your shot has missed and merely splashed up the water or rattled
again