The Complete Manual for Young Sportsmen by Frank Forester

Author:Frank Forester
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781945186769
Publisher: Clydesdale
Published: 2019-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

10 Concerning things which do not appear, and things which do not exist, the reasoning is the same.

THE FIELD.

SNIPE-SHOOTING.

Of the different kinds of field shooting, as opposed to river, lake, sea, or forest shooting, I propose to treat in reference to the season of the year with which each sport commences, beginning with the early spring-time, and continuing until the commencement of close-time, in those States, where any game laws, whatever, prevail; which, unfortunately, is the case only in a few of the Atlantic States, and in the British Provinces, to a certain extent; nor in these even are they, where they exist, observed as they ought to be, even by those who profess to be sportsmen.

The first species of upland, or rather field game, which comes into season in the Northern and Western States—in the Southern States it is a winter resident—is the bird commonly, though not correctly, known as the English snipe; this species being distinctly, though only slightly various from the European fowl of which it bears the name. The distinction was first recorded by Wilson, and consists in a permanent difference of number in the tail feathers, and of some discrepancies in cry and habits. Still the similarity is so great that I was at first inclined to believe the two varieties identical, until longer acquaintance with the habits of the American bird has assured me of its decided difference from its transatlantic congener.

This little wader is so generally known to all persons, in all parts of the country, and every where by the same name, that it needs no description; nor do I profess in this work to enter into details of natural history, which will be more fitly sought in works especially devoted to that subject, or to some more extended sporting books; as my own, Dr. Lewis’s, and the American edition of Col. Hawker’s instructive volumes.

Here I limit myself to explaining briefly to the young sportsman how to hunt for, find, and kill the game in question in fair and sportsmanlike style.

In no two States of the Union does the snipe come into season exactly at the same time, as he is every where a migratory bird, shifting his quarters as the facility of obtaining food, which he can only procure in unfrozen marshy grounds, and the necessity of rearing his young, which he can only do in certain northern temperatures and latitudes, and in wild marshy solitudes, induce or compel him to do.

Every where, however, to the northward and westward, or northward and eastward of the Carolinas, he is, probably, more or less entirely an occasional spring and autumnal visitor; coming the earlier in spring, and returning the later in autumn, the farther south and west the land lies, until he becomes a mere winter resident, departing so soon as the spring sunshine, becoming too warm, gives token of the approaching breeding season, and remaining absent until the freezing of his feeding places drive him southward still, whither he finds waters which are never congealed, morasses never impervious to his sensitive and busy bill.

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