fancy I can hear the remark at the end of the day: 'What tough brutes partridges are compared with snipe ! Look at that brace of runners we had in the morning—we wasted getting on for half an hour over them. And then look at those two snipe in the afternoon. The slightest blow will settle a snipe.' But such a case does nothing whatever to show that, other things being equal, a snipe is more easily killed than a partridge; it does nothing whatever to show that the partridge has greater proportionate vitality, or that, other things being equal, it is a 'tougher' bird than the snipe. All it does is to demonstrate how very much more serviceable a pair of legs the one bird has than the other. The partridge can run at high speed, the snipe can merely toddle; the wounded snipe is gathered with ease, the wounded partridge with difficulty-and thus appearances may lead, and do lead, people to the belief that scarcely more than a scratch will kill a snipe.

Other things being equal. Though the loss of muzzle velocity in a No. 8 pellet at from thirty to forty yards is greater than the loss of muzzle velocity in a No. 6 pellet, I hold the belief that at this range, from thirty to forty yards, the No. 8 pellet exercises greater proportionate effect upon the body of a snipe than the effect exercised upon a partridge's body by a

No. 6 pellet. If this is true there should be a higher average of wounded birds among partridges than among snipe. By wounded birds I mean all birds that are not killed quite clean. I think there is a slightly higher average, but only slightly higher; and if the average is only slightly higher, and if the No. 8 pellet exercises greater effect-proportionately-upon the body of a snipe than the No. 6 pellet on the body of a partridge, then the snipe is, other things being equal, not only as 'tough' a bird as the partridge, but 'tougher.' There is one other thing the reader may consider that the proportion of birds which come into contact with the central and harder-hitting pellets of the charge is probably greater among partridges than among snipe; the more erratic flight of the snipe should ensure that it is more often struck by the weaker outside pellets than the partridge.

It is quite a fallacy to imagine that the slightest blow will kill a snipe; and it is quite as unsportsmanlike to fire at a snipe at anything beyond fair range as it is to fire at a partridge unless the bird be well within shot.

The briefest of paragraphs on the question of loads. Do not make any reduction whatever in the standard charges of powder and shot. Many people

use only an ounce of shot for snipe shooting, and some even less. On just that little difference between I oz. of shot and 1 oz. there often hangs the question bird or whether you kill your as to whether you do not.

CHAPTER II

SNIPE SHOOTING

WE are all agreed as to what are the correct proceed

ings with regard to shooting and so on. opinion with regard to concerns the ways in which the game should be walked after or brought to the guns and the way in which it should be shot we are unanimous-to all intents and purposes. But when the subject of snipe shooting is touched upon we immediately find ourselves in the region of controversy. A says, 'You should invariably walk down wind on snipe,' while B says, 'When walking after snipe, you should always walk up wind'; C says, ' Always shoot at a snipe the very first moment you feel that you are likely to kill the bird,' while D says, 'Never think of pulling the trigger till a snipe has settled down into straight flight.' A, B, C, and D all believe implicitly in their respec

pheasant shooting, partridge One may find differences of guns and ammunition, but as

tive tenets, and practise them. They are also, as likely as not, all of them successful and experienced snipe shots. How then are these widely removed differences of opinion to be accounted for?

I think the correct answer to the foregoing question is: A born shot who has the necessary practice among snipe will acquit himself in every way satisfactorily whether he adopts and carries into systematic effect either A's or B's theory in conjunction with the theory of either C or D, and finding that he is successful under the system of his adoption will always adhere to that method and will not believe in the possibility of any other being half as good. It is human nature to believe in what one has tested and found satisfactory and thenceforward to turn a deaf ear to any argument against it. How often does one who has embraced a creed reject that creed? Seldom. Almost as seldom is his ear open to anything that may be said in favour of any other creed.

Let us examine the bases on which the tenets of A, B, C, and D are built. A says: 'The reason why you should invariably walk down wind on snipe' -you cannot by a vastly long way invariably walk either down wind or up wind on snipe, but that does not matter—' is this. Snipe generally rise against the