Those who enter into the true spirit of this sport, and where cocks are likely to be found, seldom set out for a complete day's adventure, without being previously provided with a MARKER excellently qualified for the purpose in which he is engaged. And an assistant of this description becomes the more necessary, as a cock will very frequently suffer himself to be found, and shot at, _four_ or _five_ times in the same covert; and when absolutely driven out, will sink beyond the outer fence, and gliding a short distance almost close to the ground, will drop in some adjoining ditch.
WOODCOCKS are seen in this country till about the first, and sometimes the second, week in MARCH: this, however, depends entirely upon the openness or severity of the season: if the winter has been accompanied with long and sharp frosts, they suddenly disappear within a few hours, (as by a kind of magical mystery,) and none to be found, with occasionally (and that but seldom) an exception of a disconsolate individual at or near some warm or sheltered SPRING which has not _frozen_. They are fullest of flesh during the months of DECEMBER and JANUARY to the middle of FEBRUARY, from which time, as the spring sun gets warmer, they decline in _weight_ to the time of their departure.
SNIPE SHOOTING is a sport the best calculated to try the persevering _fag_ and _bottom_ of a SPORTSMAN of any yet recounted; if he is not possessed of all the _fortitude_, _patience_, and indefatigable _exertion_ of a WATER SPANIEL, he had better never be induced to make the embarkation, at least with any sanguine expectation of success. To _wet_, _dirt_, and _difficulty_, he must be habitually inured: in body he must be invulnerable; with a constitution impregnable to the united attacks of morbidity, and a mind most perfectly at ease. Thus armed at all points for _land_ or _water_, _moor_ or _mire_, _swamps_ or _bogs_, SNIPE SHOOTING (where they are to be found in plenty) is a most excellent diversion; and some spots, particularly in a heath country, intersected by moors, swamps, and bogs, (as a celebrated scope called EEL MOOR, near Hartford Bridge, upon the western road,) the sport is so incessant, that those who visit the place in open hazy weather, may shoot so often in succession, as to have frequent occasions in the same day to wait till the barrel cools. SNIPES are of two kinds, one being full double the size of the other, and is called a WHOLE SNIPE; the smaller is called a _jack_, and of course somewhat more difficult to _kill_. Both sorts are found upon the same ground, and sometimes close to each other. They are birds of passage, and vary but little with the _flights_ of WOODCOCKS in the time of their arrival, which is generally about the _first_ plentiful _rains_ in AUTUMN. They are said to breed mostly in the low and swampiest parts of GERMANY and SWITZERLAND; although it is certain numbers do not return with the greater bodies in the spring, but remain here during the summer, and breed in the _marshes_ and _fens_, where their nests are often found in the month of June with four and five eggs in each. POINTERS only are made use of in this sport; and it is rather remarkable, that, notwithstanding this species of bird is so diminutive in proportion to the game that a dog is constantly accustomed to, he stands equally staunch to even the _jack_, (the least of the two) as to either PHEASANT, HARE, or PARTRIDGE. Snipes, the moment they are upon wing, fly against the wind, encountering which, they go off in such a _twisting_ and _twirling_ direction, that they are _then_ a very difficult object to _aim_ at; but by waiting with patience till they take their intended line, the shot may be made with a much greater probability of success. They cannot be said to be in season before NOVEMBER, or after FEBRUARY; for killed at any other time of the year, they mostly appear with a branny _scurf_ upon their bodies, as if _diseased_, or in a state of emaciation.