Snipe

“ The roadway is soft Virginia earth, and the hoofs strike no pebbles. Presently the major dismounts, and, handing his reins up to Snipe, bids him wait there in a little open space. Then, noiselessly, he and Flint lead on with the men, and Snipe feels, rather than sees, that they are surrounding the house and stationing soldiers at every door and under every window. All these now are dark save two on the lower floor in front. There are thick shades within, but they show a dull light, as from a table-lamp. Not a sound beyond a creaking of a shoe or plank is heard. ”

“ The snipe’s a bird that wants watching. If you are unlucky, you may sit waiting at home, and miss his flying over, and then you must wait till autumn. . . . It is a business! The snipe is not a rook. . . . Last year he was flying the week before Easter, while the year before we had to wait till the week after Easter! Come, do us a favour, Semyon Mitritch, give us the gun. Make us pray for you for ever. As ill-luck would have it, Ignashka has pledged his gun for drink too. Ah, when you drink you feel nothing, but now . . . ah, I wish I had never looked at it, the cursed vodka! ”

“ The men move like kittens, but it is their first experience of the kind, and most of them are excited, even nervous. As for Snipe, he rages to see how he is trembling.
And then all of a sudden the major's horse, rejoicing that the weight is gone, gives himself a thorough shake, rattling housing and stirrups and accompanying the shake with a loud b'r-r-r-r of satisfaction. All too late [220] Snipe springs from saddle and seizes both horses by the nostrils. Almost instantly booted heels are heard within, and manly, ringing voices. Somebody comes striding to the door and throws it open. ”

“ Those who only know the Snipe as it shows itself in the shooting-season, when without warning it rises from the boggy ground uttering a sharp note that sounds like scape, scape, and, after a few rapid twists, darts away, if it be not brought down by the gun, to disappear in the distance after a desultory flight, have no conception of the bird's behaviour at breeding-time. ”

“ Just to think that the old men in the reorganized New-Englanders declared that Snipe was the best soldier in the ranks of Company "C" if he was the youngest!—Snipe who couldn't shoot a gun six months ago without shutting his eyes, and who would rather fish all day or figure out equations than follow the band of the Seventh itself! ”

“ There, too, lay Snipe's, longer in the legs by nearly a foot. "There's nothing in-doors but books, Snipy. There's only one thing to tempt a fellow out in the wet,—a fire, and small chance of that on such a day. We might take the guns up on the roof and shoot a few skylights or something——"
"Shut up!" said Snipe, at this juncture, suddenly, [19] impetuously throwing up his hand. "Twenty-third Street!"
Shorty sprang to the window and levelled an old opera-glass at the summit of an odd white tower that loomed, dim and ghost-like, through the mist above the housetops quarter of a mile away. ”

“ It was a sad pity, but you cannot hammer into proprietors that the value of the snipe shooting far exceeds the couple of pounds extra value of grazing caused by draining, in fact, that snipe shooting would with some men be the turning point of whether they took the shooting or not. ”

“ But whether or no the chiefest thing is not to see that sight on your gun when you shoot, but only to look at the bird.”
They went on to another snipe patch, and soon Crawley missed again.
“Never mind, sir,” said William, “it’s a knack, snipe-shooting is, and no one can catch it without practice. I’ve seen good partridge, aye, and rabbit shots, miss ’em time after time, and I’ve knowed good snipe-shots poor at anything else too.”
At last, by trying to follow the keeper’s directions, Crawley did hit a snipe as it was flushed, but it was his only one. ”

“ This variance in the habit of the snipe it is, which makes him so hard a bird to kill; for, although he is perplexing from his rapid and twisting flight to a novice, I consider him, to a cool old hand, as easy a bird to kill as any that flies. The snipe invariably rises against or across wind, and in doing so hangs for an instant on the air before he can gather his way ”

“ Whether snipe will lie best when hunted for down or up wind, and whether they should be shot upon the rise or when their twisting is done, are questions to which different and emphatic answers are often given. However, we believe in each by turn and nothing long. The snipe is too changeable a creature to conform to any rule whatever. He is nearest consistency in rising against the wind, but even that depends upon the rate of the wind. When it is only blowing gently, the snipe can rise away from you as you walk down wind ”

“ Game.—The Wilson snipe, improperly called "jack snipe," but more properly called "English snipe," is one of our most popular game birds. Probably more snipe have been killed by sportsmen than any other game bird. It ranks ahead of all other shore birds and upland game birds except, possibly, the woodcock, ruffed grouse, and quail. When the startling cry of the snipe arouses the sportsman to instant action he realizes that he is up against a real gamey proposition. ”

“ Every sportsman that has been much accustomed to snipe-shooting, will allow, that a jack-snipe will suffer himself to be fired at twenty times in the same field, and will pitch each time so close to the shooter, that he frequently conceives that he has wounded him. ”

“ The knack of shooting snipe, as some people who can’t do it choose to call it, is no other than the knack of shooting quick, shooting straight, and shooting well ahead of cross shots—this done with a gun that will throw its charge close at 40 to 50 yards, with 11⁄2 oz. ”

“ Where the flight of the birds is known, or where two or three well-frequented marshes lie adjacent, excellent sport may be had by lying in wait at one bog whilst the others are being shot over. This is a matter of local knowledge. A driven snipe, or string of snipes, high overhead, or a jack pitching in to alight, like a butterfly in a breeze, offer shots as varied and difficult as even our modern masters of legerdemain in the arts of gunnery can well desire. ”

“ Even when feeding on the open mud-flats, the Redbreasted Snipe is so tame as to allow itself to be approached by the sportsman, with little or no address, running about and feeding perfectly unsuspicious, until its enemy has come within short range, when it springs with its tremulous cry only to be riddled with the shot of the close discharge. ”

“ Among the fowl that are driven down by stress of weather are wisps of snipe, and, although comparatively small, no game is dearer to the heart of the inland sportsman or shore-shooter. Four species of snipe are found in Britain, though one of these, the red-breasted or brown snipe, can only be looked upon as a rare straggler. The remaining three species are the common snipe, the great snipe, and the jack snipe. All snipe have a peculiar zig-zag flight, and this peculiarity renders them most difficult to kill. ”

“ The jack snipe is rarely missed by a deliberate marksman, but a snap shooter who is used to the quick and zigzag rise of the full snipe is often able to miss the little jacks, for their flight is almost that of a butterfly. ”

“ The settlement, too, is prolonged and complicated through the ingenuity of Snipe and the connivance of Bagshot and Bertram, who have promptly moved up and occupied the place vacated by their long-legged, curly-pated, brown-eyed comrade, and who now sturdily maintain that Snipe doesn't know where he belongs. As a matter of fact, Snipe doesn't; neither does he greatly care. ”

“ The woodcock is not an inhabitant of this State. The rail is rarely seen; but the jacksnipe is very plentiful in the late fall and up to mid-winter, when the great majority of them depart for warmer marshes. They do not breed here. This bird, in its quick and upward bound and its swift zigzag flights, is a recognized test of the sportsman's skill. Snipes are often bagged here, but not in the romantic way. Snipe on hot toast is a breakfast dish fit for a king.
I had a sporting friend—a doctor—with whom I often went snipe-shooting. This doctor was the best snipe-shot I have ever known. ”

“ I have found the instant at which they utter their note of alarm the best for pulling the trigger; but almost every sportsman has his peculiar fancy, and many are glad to kill them the best way they can; for he who shoots thirty snipes in succession, without missing one, is a good hand at any kind of shooting. Sometimes the Snipe will squat with great pertinacity, and even stand a pointer, while at other times it will not suffer either man or dog to approach within fifty yards of it. ”

“ The snipe is a fine creature in the air. He has two wings and has great power to do for himself.
"Small fishes swim in the water and the snipe can take any one he wants, but he can not live in the home of the bivalve, or try to take life away from him without perishing himself. ”

“ A horse before breakfast, on which I would set forth to find a range, followed by an hour in the Pioneer's shop, pasting up targets made out of old Daily Mails on to frames—the snipers of the brigade paraded at nine o'clock, the march to the improvised range, shooting the telescopic sights at the target, and after dark a lecture in some barn, was often the order of the day. ”

“ This Snipe is usually found in pairs, and seeks its food on marshy ground; but at other times conceals itself among the neighbouring long grass and rushes. If disturbed, it delays taking wing until the enemy is almost treading upon it, and has actually been caught when just rising, by having a hat put over it. ”

“ In the Army there has always been in certain quarters a prejudice against very accurate shooting, a prejudice which is quite understandable when one considers the aims and ends of musketry. While sniping is the opportunism of the rifle, musketry is its routine. It would obviously never do to diminish the depth of your beaten zone by excess of accuracy. But this war, which, whatever may be said to the contrary—and much was said to the contrary—was largely a war of specialists, changed many things, and among them the accurate shot or sniper was destined to prove his extraordinary value. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The use of snipers in attack is another point. If you have a man who can hit a model of a human head once in every 2 shots at 400 yards—and I will undertake to get most men up to this standard who can shoot decently—we shall kill some machine gunners in our next advance. Also when a German is shooting at our troops coming down a road through an aperture made by the removal of a brick from a wall, as they have often done, how useful to have a fellow who can put a bullet through the aperture. ”

“ You kin lay the rifle back of you, in case a wild-cat or a cougar prowls up. An' you whistle jest as hard an' as continual as you can, whilse the balance of us beats aroun' an' drives in the snipe. They'll run fer the candle ever' time. An' the minit that sack is full of snipe, all you've got to do is to pull out the prop, an' they're yourn.”
“All right, Mr. Tobe,” responded Bud, squatting down and clutching the candle, his face radiant with expectation.
The crowd scattered, and for a few moments made a noisy pretence of beating the shinn-oak thickets for imaginary snipe. ”

“ The smallest of big game animals did not present so small a mark as the German head, so that sniping became the highest and most difficult of all forms of rifle shooting. At it, every good target shot, though always useful, was not necessarily successful, for speed was only less necessary than accuracy, and no sniper could be considered worthy of the name who could not get off his shot within two seconds of sighting his target. ”

“ All Brigadiers are very keen indeed to get a high standard of sniping, and many of them feel that to do this is almost impossible unless the snipers are trained to their rifles until their belief in their own powers of hitting a mark, however small, becomes fixed. ”

“ Of course no telescopic sight should ever be touched, except as far as moving the focussing sleeve goes, by anyone who does not understand it thoroughly. When the object-glass becomes dirty or fogged with wet, snipers often unscrew it. ”

“ But the actual teaching was only one side of the work of the school, for it was soon thoroughly known throughout the Army that if any Division, Brigade or Battalion wanted its telescopic sights tested, or if any individual sniper found himself shooting incorrectly, all that had to be done was to apply to the First Army Sniping School. The divisional snipers came up in ’busloads, and single snipers often came on foot. This continual testing of rifles kept Armourer Staff-Sergeant Carr busy both on the range and in his armourer’s shop. ”

“ The sniper’s job is no sinecure. Both sides are always engaged in trying to locate snipers, and once a sniper’s nest is discovered, a few rounds with a machine-gun will generally bring him down, however well concealed he may be. A sniper never knows but that an enemy marksman has found him out, and is [Pg 202] waiting, finger on trigger, for the slightest movement on his quarry’s part to pick him off.
Sniping is an integral part of trench warfare. The Germans attach so much importance to it that they have not hesitated to issue expensive telescopic-sight rifles to their picked marksmen. ”