kept fully occupied, and it was
highly gratifying to hear a heavy splash in the lagoon after each
successful shot.

As soon as the light began to fail I ceased firing and retrieved my
birds, which numbered twenty-seven, including several varieties of
fish ducks with serrated bills and, as I have subsequently learnt
although then mistaking them for large divers, three goosanders. On my
way back to the house-boat I surprised and shot a goose which was
feeding close under the river bank, so that my total bag consisted of
fifty-one head, and I always look back on that day as one of the most
enjoyable I have ever spent.

The snipe-shooting cannot be surpassed anywhere in the world. In
spring, after spending the winter in rich southern climes, these
birds, following the returning warmth, slowly migrate to Siberia for
nesting. They pass through Central China during May, arriving almost
simultaneously, when for about three weeks one can have superb sport,
and then they depart as suddenly as they came. One day they will
swarm, and the next hardly a bird is to be seen.

Snipe-shooting at home one always associates with long boots, cold
water, mud and marshes. Spring snipe-shooting in China is of a totally
different kind.

Imagine a bright, warm day, with the sun almost too powerful, dry
meadows with fresh, green grass, and clover about six inches high,
fields of wheat and barley in ear and beans in flower, all Nature at
her best. You take your gun with a plentiful supply of cartridges, a
coolie to carry bottled beer and sandwiches and to pick up the birds,
and sally forth into the meadows and fields, dressed in an ordinary
light summer suit or flannels, terai hat and low shoes, with the
bottoms of your trousers tucked into your socks to keep out the
insects.

You have not gone far before one, two--half a dozen birds rise within
easy range, and perhaps you make a right and left. What birds they
are, too, fat as butter!--in fact, so fat and heavy that they often
rip quite open merely from the force of falling to the ground. In this
way you go on, firing until the gun becomes so hot that every now and
then you must wait to let the barrels cool. My best bag for one day
was forty-one and a half couples, but this has been doubled by sports
who have shot to make a record.

Autumn snipe, or spring snipe returned, on passing from Siberia to
winter in the south, are not usually in very good condition, owing
probably to the nature