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The game-birds are the bustard, florikan, guinea-fowl, partridge, quail, snipe, various geese and ducks, and a very dark-coloured rock-pigeon or sand-grouse. The birds in general have very tame plumage, and are much more scarce, generally speaking, than one finds in most other countries.
Gladstone of course did not doubt it; but some of the young men smiled incredulously. I afterwards wrote to Lord Ebury to make sure that I had not erred. Here is his reply: 'Moor Park, Rickmansworth: January 9, 1883. 'MY dear Henry, What you said I had told you about snipe- shooting is quite true, though I think I ought to have mentioned a space rather nearer the river than Eaton Square.
"I did give Lester credit for a little common sense and a little knowledge, but I declare he possesses neither. It beats the world how he has got things mixed. Just listen to this," added Don, consulting his note-book. "He speaks of a pheasant and calls it T. Scolopax. Now Scolopax is a snipe. He probably meant ruffed grouse, and should have called it Tetrao Umbellus.
"Mine's Peter Pax," answered the small boy, returning to his goblet; "but I've no end of aliases such as Mouse, Monkey, Spider, Snipe, Imp, and Little 'un. Call me what you please, it's all one to me, so as you don't call me too late for dinner." "And what have you got there, Pax?" asked Phil, referring to the pot. "A plum-pudding." "Do two or three of you share it?"
They are all gone now. No longer do the ruffs trample the sedge into a hard floor in their fighting-rings, while the sober reeves stand round, admiring the tournament of their lovers, gay with ears and tippets, no two of them alike. Gone are ruffs and reeves, spoonbills, bitterns, avosets; the very snipe, one hears, disdains to breed.
Above the aquatic plants, on the surface of the stagnant water, fluttered numbers of birds. Wild duck, teal, snipe lived there in flocks, and those fearless birds allowed themselves to be easily approached. One shot from a gun would certainly have brought down some dozen of the birds, they were so close together. The explorers were, however, obliged to content themselves with bows and arrows.
As I watched him going ahead of me, crouching behind bushes, springing from hummock to hummock, silent and alert, quivering like an animal in search of prey, my attention was centered on him rather than on any possible quarry. I shall never forget running across him in the woods one afternoon when I had gone out snipe shooting alone.
And if any man offers another fraction for it to outbid that, I'll spit him on my sword like a snipe. 'I outbid him, said a fair young lady in a veil, by his side, flinging twenty golden pieces more on the ground. There was no voice to outbid the lady, and young Owney, kneeling, gave the cup into her hands.
When he got himsel' gaithered oot amon' the peycods an' cabbitch, he was genna be at me, but Dauvid Kenawee stappit forrit, an' says he, "Saira ye richt, ye gude-for-naething snipe 'at ye are. Lift a hand till her, an' I'll ca' the chafts o' ye by ither." "What bisness hae you shuvin' your nose in?" says Pottie Lawson. "There was naebody middlin' wi' you."
Some good snipe and duck shooting might have been got round these lagoons, but as nearly all their caps had been destroyed by the fire, it was not to be thought of.
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