"Snipe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dandy-looking in his uniform, with medals strung on his breast and his new gold-handled sword. You'd never have taken him for the little white-headed snipe that the girls used to order about and make fun of. He just stood there for a minute, looking at Myra with a peculiar little smile on his face; and then he says to her, slow, and kind of holding on to ...
— Options • O. Henry
... brought them. There is a rabbit-warren on the north-east of the island, belonging to the Duke of Argyle. Young Col intends to get some hares, of which there are none at present. There are no black-cock, muir-fowl, nor partridges; but there are snipe, wild-duck, wild-geese, and swans, in winter; wild-pidgeons, plover, and great number of starlings; of which I shot some, and found them pretty good eating. Woodcocks come hither, though there is not a tree upon the island. There are no rivers in Col; ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... says he. "I suppose I made an awful ass of myself. But even if she is a public dancer, that snipe shouldn't have insulted her. Of course I'd found out long before that Miss Toots was no ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... stalemate days a dozen sharpshooters waiting for such opportunities would have had a try at you; a machine gun might have loosened up, and even batteries of artillery in their search for game to show itself from cover did not hesitate to snipe with shells ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... camp the estuary had so much the appearance of a low-lying arm of the sea, with the tide out, that we could easily understand why Gregory called it a "sea" rather than a lake. Numerous sandspits stand out in the middle, on which, in early morning, so dense was the crowd of shags, pelicans, snipe, small gulls, whistling duck, teal, and other birds, that to say that there was acre upon acre of wild-fowl would not be wide of the mark; but in spite of their abundance they were not easily shot; for not only did their numbers insure the watchfulness ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... that the earth was once covered with water and the sky alone was inhabited, until God sent his only begotten daughter in the form of a kuri, or snipe, to look for dry land. She found a spot, and brought down to it earth, and a creeping plant, which grew and decomposed into worms, and, lo! the worms turned ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... a thrashing, you lying little snipe, always hanging around the petticoats! Don't you suppose I ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... feet] biped, quadruped; [web-footed animal] webfoot. flocks and herds, live stock; domestic animals, wild animals; game, ferae naturae [Lat.]; beasts of the field, fowls of the air, denizens of the sea; black game, black grouse; blackcock^, duck, grouse, plover, rail, snipe. [domesticated mammals] horse &c (beast of burden) 271; cattle, kine^, ox; bull, bullock; cow, milch cow, calf, heifer, shorthorn; sheep; lamb, lambkin^; ewe, ram, tup; pig, swine, boar, hog, sow; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... these is secured. The rest fly towards a little pool of dark water lying at a considerable distance from the common, a well-known rendezvous for those birds. Cautiously approaching, down wind, I reach the margin. Up springs a snipe; but just as my finger is on the trigger, and when too late to alter my intention, a duck and mallard rise from among the rushes and wheel round my head. One barrel is fortunately left, and the drake comes tumbling to the ground. Three or four pheasants, another ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... noticing these things, and remembering them when reading Lyell's "Geology," or Maury's book on the sea, or the innumerable treatises bearing on the same interesting questions. Whether en route for the rabbit-ground, or looking for water-fowl, or later for snipe, I never passed by without finding something, often a fragment of fossil washed from the gravel or sand by ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... on exhibition in 47. There was "Shorty," for instance. "Shorty" was a jolly, ugly open-handed, four-eyed little snipe of a roughneck machinist who had lost "in the line of duty" two fingers highly useful in his trade. In consequence he was now, after the generous fashion of the I.C.C., on full pay for a year without work, providing he did not leave the Zone. And while "Shorty," like ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... several snipe and a fat turkey, when, as we were clambering up a bank, being somewhat before my companions, I was not a little surprised to see, within four paces of me, the huge head of a black bear, peering ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... exhausting. Usual Chatty Clergyman at end of table, talking Guide-book intelligently; wife next him, ruminating in silence and dismally contemplating artificial plant in a plated pot in front of her. It is a depressing object—but why look at it? Horror of two Sportsmen opposite on being offered snipe. "Snipe now—Great Scott!" they exclaim, "And ain't they high too?" One helps himself to some, with a sense that being on the Continent makes all the difference. But even his courage fails on being offered stewed apricots with it. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... camp was also on the bank of a small stream. Shortly after our arrival on the ground, Thompson started out afoot, taking with him his gun. He had noticed a tract of marsh at no great distance off. He thought it promised well for snipe. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... fragraunt oyntmentes, and oyles, to preserue it the longer: thei bewrye it in holy sepulture. If a man haue slayne any of these beastes willingly: he is codempned to death. But yf he haue slaine an catte or a snyte, [Footnote: A snipe, from the Saxon snyta. "Greene-plover, snyte, / Partridge, larke, cocke, and phessant." Heyw. Engl. Trav., Act i., Scene ii.] willingly or vnwillingly: the people ronneth vpon him vppon heapes, and withoute all ordre of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... of hers. Only a five-day acquaintanceship, but they had crowded much into it as one did in a strange land. The episode had been a green and dangerous spot, like one of those bright mossy bits of bog when you were snipe-shooting, to set foot on which was to let you down up to the neck, at least. Well, there was none of that danger now, for her husband was dead-poor chap! It would be nice, in these dismal days, when nobody spent any time whatever except in the service of the country, to improve his powers of service ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Geographic Society,' vol. xiii. 1843, p. 31.) Birds which seem ill-adapted for fighting engage in fierce conflicts; thus the stronger males of the pelican drive away the weaker ones, snapping with their huge beaks and giving heavy blows with their wings. Male snipe fight together, "tugging and pushing each other with their bills in the most curious manner imaginable." Some few birds are believed never to fight; this is the case, according to Audubon, with one of the woodpeckers of the United States (Picu sauratus), although "the hens are followed by even half ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... laughter that followed this was not in proportion to the depth but the unexpectedness of the joke, and John Adams went on his way, chuckling at the impudence of what he called the precocious snipe. ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... moment a flock of teal and snipe flew up before his Majesty; and he exclaimed laughingly: "Go, go, my beauties; make room for other game." His Majesty said to those around him, "This time ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... likin' 'em, and follern' 'em up. Enny man that'll do that is little enough to crawl through a knot-hole without rubbing his clothes." Says I: "I suppose you made her think the moon rose in your head and set in your heels. I daresay you acted foolish enough round her to sicken a snipe, and if you makes fun of her now to please me, I let you know you have got ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... office. He had not been in it long before he perceived that by certain simple reforms the work of the office could be done twice as effectually and half as expensively. He embodied these reforms in a memorandum and they were not long afterwards adopted. He became private secretary to Snipe, a rising politician and persuaded him to change his party and his politics. Snipe, owing to this advice, became a Cabinet Minister, and the man who gave good advice, having inherited some money, stood for Parliament himself. He stood as a Conservative at a General Election ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... beyond, so that neither the hawk amid the cover nor its partner above nor the clamorous beaters could harm it. The King laughed at the mischance and rode on. Continually birds of various sorts were flushed, and each was pursued by the appropriate hawk, the snipe by the tercel, the partridge by the goshawk, even the lark by the little merlin. But the King soon tired of this petty sport and went slowly on his way, still with the magnificent silent attendant ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... interesting resident of most of South America, we found tiny red- legged plover which also breed and are at home in the tropics. The contrasts in habits between closely allied species are wonderful. Among the plovers and bay snipe there are species that live all the year round in almost the same places, in tropical and subtropical lands; and other related forms which wander over the whole earth, and spend nearly all their time, now in the arctic and cold temperate regions ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... day or two I came to a pond where were sitting five snipe. I killed the whole bunch, and they helped to make another square meal. We were now near the border of the Great Desert proper, where, out of the midst of a level plain, stood a lone mountain known ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... lean and lonely itself, but so close to a crowded thoroughfare that they could see the vague masses of vehicles going by, and could even see an individual hansom cab passing the corner at the instant. Turnbull put his fingers to his mouth like a gutter-snipe and whistled twice. Even as he did so he could hear the loud voices of the neighbours and the police coming ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... progress gradually dispelled. We tumbled out of one deep ditch into another, scrambled perseveringly through brambles and brushwood, saw places where pheasants ought to have been, and places where they had been, but never saw a bird except a jack-snipe in the distance. The only sport we had was in the untiring energy of the lad already mentioned, who, long after the dogs had given it up as a bad job, continued to beat every bush as diligently as at first starting, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... girl just sparks around an' acts real entertainin', evenin's. I shouldn't wonder, with such a smart ma, if she caught a beau. I do wish, Janet, since you ain't got no one but Billy,—an' every one knows he's got 'bout as much gumption as a snipe,—I do wish you could land one of these boarders. They must be real easy ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... Thus do I euer make my Foole, my purse: For I mine owne gain'd knowledge should prophane If I would time expend with such Snipe, But for my Sport, and Profit: I hate the Moore, And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets She ha's done my Office. I know not if't be true, But I, for meere suspition in that kinde, Will do, as if for Surety. He holds me well, The better shall my purpose worke ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... clash, telling that I was utterly incapable of any such thing, being a man of a guileless heart, and a spiritual simplicity, that would be ornamental in a child. We then had the latheron summoned before the session, and was not long of making her confess that the father was Nichol Snipe, Lord Glencairn's gamekeeper; and both her and Nichol were obligated to stand in the kirk: but Nichol was a graceless reprobate, for he came with two coats, one buttoned behind him, and another buttoned before him, and two wigs of my lord's, lent him by the ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... 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 ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... in jubilantly. "It's just what I wanted, Viola. Now you are being a real sister to me. We will start early in the morning and—and buy out the town. Bless your heart, you've taken a great load off my mind. I haven't the intelligence of a snipe when it comes to fitting up a—why, say, I tell you what I'll do. I will let you choose everything I need, just as if you were setting up housekeeping for yourself. Curtains, table cloths, carpets, counterpanes, china, ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... where we went on shore, where we had manifest signs of people, where they had made their fire, and laid stones like a wall. In this place we saw four very fair falcons, and Master Bruton took from one of them his prey, which we judged by the wings and legs to be a snipe, for the ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... house-martin the latest. The rooks return to the roost trees, and the tortoise begins to bury himself for the winter. Woodcocks begin to arrive, and keep dropping in from the Baltic singly or in pairs till December. The snipe also comes now;" and with the month, by a kind of savage charter, commences the destruction of the pheasant, to swell the catalogue of the created wants and luxuries of the table. "One of the most curious natural appearances," says Mr. ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various
... the Iroquois Indians was divided into two phratries, each of which was again subdivided into four clans, named after their totems or animals; the Bear, Wolf, Beaver, and Turtle clans belonging to one phratry, while the other included the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk clans. Morgan's researches show that originally an Indian belonging to one phratry could marry a woman belonging to the other only. Subsequently the line was drawn less strictly, but still no Indian was allowed to marry a squaw of his own clan, though there might be no blood, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... listened eagerly for some intermission, but it did not relax or recede, and I knew that the Turks must be holding on. The bullets became thicker—an ironic whistle, a sucking noise, a gluck like a snipe leaving mud, the squeal and rattle ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... excessive fatigue; locally from severe injuries, such as burns; and, in an especial manner, by the passage of a catheter. Of all emotions, fear notoriously is the most apt to induce trembling; but so do occasionally great anger and joy. I remember once seeing a boy who had just shot his first snipe on the ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... spoil the fun. So they get it into line with another man's grove nearer by, and under that cover quicken to a gallop. Away, away; splash, splash, through the coolees, around the maraises, clouds of wild fowl that there is no time to shoot into rising now on this side, now on that; snipe without number, gray as the sky, with flashes of white, trilling petulantly as they flee; giant snowy cranes lifting and floating away on waving pinions, and myriads of ducks in great eruptions of hurtling, whistling wings. On ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... and easily procured. The woods and waters furnished all that they required. A hare and some snipe and plover, with a few trout and a salmon, were the result of a short excursion, that did not extend much farther than a stone's ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... 149 Kraunkah. Snipe, curlew. Is it meant for Kuravika, or Karavika, a fine-voiced bird (according to Kern, the Sk. karayika), or for Kalavinka-Pali Kalavika? See Childers, s. v. opapatiko; Burnouf, Lotus, p. 566. I see, however, the same birds mentioned together elsewhere, as hamsakraunkamayurasukasalikakokila, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... me a week or so this Christmas at my father's place in Suffolk, Nugget Towers. The best of the shooting is over, the partridges being very wild by now, and it is not a pheasant country, as there are no woods to speak of. But there are a good many snipe down towards the river, so you had better bring your gun. Besides we will have a day's partridge driving, for there are plenty, if you could only get at them. And there is a pack of foxhounds that meets about ten miles off once a week at least, and some harriers ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... of calibres is a serious drawback to the comfort of a hunter in wild countries, it is quite impossible to avoid the difficulty, as there is no rifle that will combine the requirements for a great variety of game. As the wild goose demands B B shot and the snipe No. 8, in like manner the elephant requires the heavy bullet, and the deer is ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... much alike. McCloud dropped forward in his saddle, and, seeking no explanation, laid his head low and spurred Bill Dancing's horse for life or death. The horse, quite amazed, bolted and swerved down the grade like a snipe, with his rider crouching close for a second shot. But no second shot came, and after another mile McCloud ventured to take off his hat and put his finger through the holes in it, though he did not stop his horse to make the examination. When they reached the open country the horse had settled ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... of winesap and rambo in the boiling cider, while the newly opened bottles of grape juice filled the house with the tang of Concord and muscadine. It seemed to me I never got nicely fixed where I could take a sly dip in the cake dough or snipe a fat raisin from the mincemeat but Candace would say: "Don't you suppose the backlog is halfway ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... which are common enough in England in the winter, but which mostly go away to Norwegian breeding-grounds, such as geese, ducks, woodcock, and snipe; while bramblings, fieldfares, and redwings are birds of the North, and never nest in Great Britain. Besides these, there are a certain number of birds which have no claim to be termed British, and which are found in Norway all the year round—the ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... what they thought was Dessie turned out to be a feather bolster. John snatched back the covers. The bed was empty except for that long feather bolster that strumpet had covered over lengthwise of the bed. Come to find out Dessie had sent John snipe huntin', so to speak, and she skipped out with a timber cruiser. Dyke was laid up for all of a week; took a deep cold on his chest from riding ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... thither stole a happy boat To hear the ringdoves coo, To mark again the drumming snipe Zigzag the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... down-wind through the sunlight with their tails streaming behind them, at a pace which would leave any pheasant standing. As peacocks are regarded as sacred by Hindoos, the Maharajah had particularly begged us not to shoot any. There were plenty of other birds, snipe, partridges, florican and jungle-cocks, the two latter greatly esteemed for their flesh. I shot a jungle-cock, and was quite disappointed at finding him a facsimile of our barndoor game-cock, for I had imagined that he would ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... snap; another variety called tumblers turn themselves over in the air. Some birds have movements peculiar to the season of love: thus ring-doves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring hang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner; thus the cock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight, fans the air like the wind- hover; and the green-finch in particular exhibits such languishing and faltering gestures as to appear like a wounded and dying ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... ill-endowed from a musical point of view, have their wing feathers or tails peculiarly developed and stiffened, and are able to produce with them a strange snapping or cracking sound. Thus several species of snipe make drumming or "bleating" noises—something like the bleat of a goat—with their narrowed tails as they descend in flight.[74] Magpies have a still more curious method of call, by rapping on dry and sonorous branches, which they use not only to attract the female, but ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... general rule, any more than any other complete upsetting of the balance of nature. A great deal could be learnt from the excellent work already done all over the continent with regard to the farmer's and forester's wild friends and foes. A migrating flight of curlew, snipe, plover or sandpipers is worth much more to the farmer alive than dead. But by no means every farmer knows the value of ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... thank God!" remarked the watchman, Ignat, as he passed by with some buckets.... "Snipe will be about to-morrow, and we will have ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... two's dredging round the rocks to the eastward, would probably yield many delicate and brilliant little fishes; Gobies, brilliant Labri, blue, yellow, and orange, with tiny rabbit mouths, and powerful protruding teeth; pipe fishes (Syngnathi) (25) with strange snipe-bills (which they cannot open) and snake-like bodies; small cuttlefish (Sepiolae) of a white jelly mottled with brilliant metallic hues, with a ring of suckered arms round their tiny parrots' beaks, who, put into a jar, will hover and dart in the water, as the ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... identical are they in every detail with the carved woodwork of Picau, of Cauner, or of Nilson, who designed the flamboyant frames of the time of Louis XV. Others have more individuality. In his mirror frames he introduced a peculiar bird with a long snipe-like beak, and rather impossible wings, an imitation of rockwork and dripping water, Chinese figures with pagodas and umbrellas; and sometimes the illustration of Aesop's fables interspersed with scrolls and ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... Ed let fall, fell, ez I say, on Sunday— Which is the reason we wuz shocked to see him sail in Monday A-puffin' at a snipe that sizzled like a Chinese cracker An' smelt fur all the world like rags instead uv like terbacker; Recoverin' from our first surprise, us fellows fell to pokin' A heap uv fun at "folks uz said how ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... with him. He is always fond of the young officers, and is not the less inclined to be so of one who is so dear and near to you. I wish he would have stayed longer, and hope that he shall come again. We have not much to offer in the way of amusement, but in January and February there is good snipe shooting. ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... Tell tale sometimes called Yellow-leg Snipe, and Little Cucu, inhabits the whole of North America, nesting in the cold temperate and subarctic districts of the northern continent, migrating south in winter to Argentine and Chili. It is much rarer in the western than eastern province of North America, and is only accidental in ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... snipe from horseback," I said sharply. "You're mixing up shooting and hunting, my lad. And in any case there are reasons, special reasons, why I ride Toby—reasons of which you ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... be content," he replied, "if you will say nothing about it until you are well settled. After that I promise to send you a bill as long as a snipe's." ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... must have had a pretty long spell of uneasiness before she saw him back again. But Mr. Waterton, Baptist of a new generation in these mysteries, took that conceit out of Europe: the sloth, says he, cannot like a snipe or a plover run a race neck and neck with a first-class railway carriage; but is he, therefore, a slow coach? By no means: he would go from London to Edinburgh between seedtime and harvest. Now Gillman's Coleridge, vol. i., has no such speed: it has taken six ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... spreading over the sky as I came upon a small plantation which I believed belonged to me. I struck straight across it; emerging from its shadows, I found myself by a small stream and some marshy land; on the other side another small plantation. A snipe got up, I fired, and tailored it. I marked the bird into this other plantation, and followed. Up got a covey of partridges—bang, bang—one down by the side of an oak. I was about to enter this covert, when a lady ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Timar by a soft turf path along the bank to the place where his boat was made fast. At this moment a couple of snipe rose with their shrill cry close to the island. Timar's first thought was of the savory dish they would make for Timea's supper. In an instant he had shouldered his gun, and with a well-aimed right and ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... for dinner, Monsieur Calyste, and snipe, and pancakes such as I know you can't get anywhere but here," said Mariotte, with a sly, triumphant look as she smoothed the cloth, a cascade ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... the regulations, migratory game birds were defined as Ducks, Geese, Swans, Rails, Coots, Pigeons, Cranes, and shore birds, which included Plover, Snipe, Woodcock, and Sandpipers. Migratory insectivorous birds were enumerated as Thrushes, Orioles, Larks, Swallows, Wrens, {183} Woodpeckers, and all other perching birds that feed entirely or chiefly ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... Just as he touched the highest point of his spring I fired. I did not dare to wait, for I saw that he would clear the whole space and land right upon me. Without a sight, almost without aim, I fired, as one would fire a snap-shot at a snipe. The bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound caused by the passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was swept to the ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... the boy had been permitted to choose, it isn't likely that he would have thought of alighting there; but the birds probably looked upon this as a veritable paradise. Ducks and geese walked about and fed on the meadow; nearer the water, ran snipe, and other coast-birds. The loons lay in the sea and fished, but the life and movement was upon the long sea-weed banks along the coast. There the birds stood side by side close together and picked grub-worms—which ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... possibly get a correct aim with "ball" out of a smoothbore, without squinting along the barrel and taking the muzzle-sight accurately? The fact is, that many persons fire so hastily at game that they take no sight at all, as though they were snipe-shooting with many hundred grains of shot in the charge. This will never do for ball-practice, and when the rifle is placed in such hands, the breech-sights naturally bother the eye which is not accustomed to recognize any sight; and while the person is vainly ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... enough of a treat, without the vague horrors that may be comprised in the additional 'all kinds.' Jack's account of the game on St. Simon's is really quite tantalising to me, who cannot carry a gun any more than if I were a slave. He says that partridges, woodcocks, snipe, and wild duck abound, so that, at any rate, our table ought to be well supplied. His account of the bears that are still to be found in the woods of the mainland, is not so pleasant, though he says ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... gone by, when my naked feet were tripped By the honeysuckle tangles where the water-lilies dipped, And the ripples of the river lipped the moss along the brink, Where the placid-eyed and lazy-footed cattle came to drink, And the tilting snipe stood fearless of the truant's wayward cry And the splashing of the swimmer, in the ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... men, who ride daringly and ride to kill. Once a week the centre of the office is filled with game: rabbits, quail, snipe, ducks, etc., everything here—but an undertaker. And old Ocean eternally booming (the only permanent boom I ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... current is very swift. Tortoises used to line the margin of the river in the evening, with their heads sticking out above water, while crowds of angry birds accused them from the wet mud of the shore. Wild duck, partridge, snipe, sand-grouse and doves were fairly numerous, and in the evenings it was possible to get a good bag. It was worth shooting jackals, for their skins were in very good condition. The hospital had a football ground and later on, towards the ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... "Pierre says you're grouching about your garret. How about me, and this job? You get out of yours to-night for keeps. What about me? I can't do anything but act as a damned blind for the rest of you with this fool store, just because I was born a freak that every gutter-snipe on the ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... friends drinking out of it should lift up their hearts and no longer be oppressed with humility. But on the second I determined for a rousing Latin thing, such as men shouted round camp fires in the year 888 or thereabouts; so, the imagination fairly set going and taking wood-cock's flight, snipe-fashion, zigzag and devil-may-care- for-the-rules, this seemed to ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... their (mostly empty) pockets, and wished him joy of his bargain. Now the Kylemore improvements are the wonder of Connemara. The long unknown mangold is seen to flourish on spots which once nourished about a snipe to an acre. Root crops are very largely grown, and it is to these that the climate and reclaimed bog of Connemara are more particularly favourable; but there is abundance of grain at Currywongoan, at Greenmount, and at the home-farm ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... old woman with another dip. "I'm wonderful souple in my limbs, considerin' everythin'; for the same house would give a snipe a cowld. The blankets are a great comfort. They're ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... the brook. No doubt the cattle trod in the edge of the firm ground by degrees every year to get at the water, and thus widened the marsh. It was easy to understand now why all the water-fowl, teal and duck, moorhen and snipe, seemed in winter ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... that pleased me so much. Well—I followed this little brook till it entered the river, and then took the path that runs along the bank. On the opposite side I observed several little birds running along the shore, and making a piping noise. They were brown and white, and about as big as a snipe. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... sight when we reached the top of the last dune. It was a gently sloping sandy stretch, upon which a fine surf was beating. There were no pebbles save bits of water-worn coral and shell. Quantities of sea-gulls were flying about and flocks of little snipe ran down over the retreating surf, catching food, turning and running rapidly in before the coming wave. A single shot into the flock killed thirty-one of the little creatures, which later in the day supplied us an excellent ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... classes after the series of regrettable incidents of the winter, raged violently among the Irish Loyalists. Nowhere were the recruiting officers more fervently besieged than in Dublin. Youthful squireens who boasted of being admirable snipe shots, and possessed a knowledge of all that pertained to horses, struggled with prim youths out of banks for the privilege of serving as troopers. The sons of plump graziers in the West made up parties with footmen out of their landlords' mansions, ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... field and he disappears into the narrow lane cutting through the tall stems of sugarcanes; then he reaches the open meadow where the cricket chirps and where there is not a single man to be seen, only the snipe wagging their tails and poking at the mud with their bills. I can feel him coming nearer and nearer and ...
— The Post Office • Rabindranath Tagore
... fields; a straight line from the churchyard to Chertsey. John de Rutherwyk, doubtless, often walked or rode that lonely byway; perhaps it was he who raised the level path dry and well-drained out of the swampy, snipe-haunted meadows that lay between the little church and ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... to snipe us at times with their field guns and mountain guns, but generally at certain fixed places—down near the mouth of the Aghyl Dere, for example. The German snipes with them more generally. There is no place that I have visited which can compare for perpetual "unhealthiness" to ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... print to me, lad. You have just brooded over it so long that it's natural you should begin to have doubts and fears. To me it's as sound as when you first gave it. That being so, we can't run an' leave them poor ignorant savages to be shot down maybe like snipe. It wouldn't be Christian like to go when that ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... from early morning till dark without firing a shot. The snipe rose almost at his feet, and wheeling in circles through the air, dipped again into some dark crevice of the waste, unnoticed by him! One thought only possessed, and never left him, as he went. He had overheard Nina's words to his ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Goose," from the exceeding brilliancy of its plumage. But nowhere could a spot be found where the ship's boat could approach without extreme danger. The water was shallow everywhere, and the breakers were heavy. Fish of many kinds—more especially mullets,—geese, snipe, teal, and other birds of excellent flavour, were caught and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... It was a childish temper and soon over—still, a temper. "Lord," said she, "if you mean to say that you think your poor little snipe of a daughter, dressed like a little maid-of-all-work, can compare with that lovely little Lily Jennings, who is ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... from London was invited to go for "a day's snipe-shooting" in the country. The invitation was accepted, and host and guest shouldered guns and sallied forth in quest ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... legs because they live in marshy places, and long necks and beaks to catch the small animals upon which they feed. Snipe and Woodcock have long tapering bills which are alive to the very points with what are called nerves, so that they may be able to feel for worms as they dig for them in the soft sand and mud, where they cannot see them. Two birds of this family, the Stork and the Crane, are mentioned in the Bible ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... birds familiar to European sportsmen, partridges and quails are to be had at all times; the woodcock has occasionally been shot in the hills, and the ubiquitous snipe, which arrives in September from Southern India, is identified not alone by the eccentricity of its flight, but by retaining in high perfection the qualities which have endeared it to the gastronome at home. But the magnificent pheasants, which inhabit the Himalayan range and the woody hills ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... dust-bin; get anything you like here, from a fresh gutter-snipe to old Haroun-al-Raschid. It's the biggest jack-pot on earth. Barnum's the man for this place—P. T. Barnum. Golly, how the whole thing glitters and stews! Out of Shoobra his High Jinks Pasha kennels with his lions and lives with his cellars of gold, as if he was going to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... George Snipe was an ardent book-lover, and sat in the smoking car in a state of suspended ecstasy. He had been invited out to Mandrake Park to visit the library of Mr. Genial Girth, the well-known collector of rare autographed books. Devoted amateur of literature as he was, George's humble career ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... indefinable charm, to a lively man like Caper, in spending a day in the open country around Rome. Whether it was passed, gun in hand, near the Solfatara, trying to shoot snipe and woodcock, or, with paint-box and stool, seated under a large white cotton umbrella, sketching in the valley of Poussin or out on the Via Appia, that day was invariably marked down ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... stroll outside the town, and you meet the heroes returning. "Well, what sport?" "Pas mal, mon cher. Not so bad," is the reply, in a tone of ill-concealed triumph; and plunging his hand into his game-bag, the chasseur produces—a phthisical snipe, a wood pigeon, an extenuated quail, and perhaps something which you at first take for a deformed blackbird, but which turns out to be a water-hen. As far as our own observations go, we do aver this to be a very handsome average of a French sportsman's day's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... gained knowledge should profane Were I to waste myself with such a snipe But for my sport ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... means of gratifying their inclination. Besides bears, wolves, boars, foxes, roebucks, chamois, hares, and ermines, all of which are plentiful in parts of the country, birds of all kinds abound; grey and red-legged partridges, blackcock, ducks of various kinds, quail, and snipe, are the most common; while flights of geese and cranes pass in the spring and autumn, but only descend in spring. Swans and pelicans are also birds of passage, and occasionally visit these unknown lands. The natives are clever in trapping these ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... the time they took up the tomahawk and agreed to join their father, the king, they were promised plenty of white men to fight with them; "but the number is not now greater," said he, "than at the commencement of the war; and we are treated by them like the dogs of snipe hunters; we are always sent ahead to start the game: it is better that we should return to our country, and let the Americans come on and fight the British." To this proposition his followers agreed; but the ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... and I sez, "Well, you good-for-nothin' snipe you, instead of traipsin' all over the neighborhood tellin' of your wife's state, why hain't you to home buildin' a fire and heatin' soap stuns and ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... informed that on the Imperial preserves in the neighbourhood of Vienna the first snipe had been seen, the passionate huntsman said, 'I am exceedingly sorry, but I've no time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... on me. I'm a sucker. I know it. I'm one of the few hundred other God-damned fools that you've managed to catch out shooting snipe. Now what I want to know is, how much is it going to cost me to get out of your corner? What's the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... numerous, large flocks of black cockatoos, cockatoo parrots, galaas, budgerygars or grass parrots ('Melopsittacus Undulatus, Gould'), and some grey quail were frequently seen, and on one of the lagoons a solitary snipe was found. Another cow was abandoned to-day. The total day's stage was 8 miles. The party camped in the sandy bed of the river. A little rain was experienced at night. (Camp XXV.) Latitude 16 ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... sea-snipe, or trumpet-fish, but, oho, without a tooth! He made me think of a scorpion that has a poisonous, ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... (Puffinuria Berardii) which inhabits the inland sounds and resembles the auk in some particulars of habit and appearance. There are numerous species in these sheltered channels, inlets and sounds of geese, ducks, swans, cormorants, ibises, bitterns, red-beaks, curlew, snipe, plover and moorhens. Conspicuous among these are the great white swan (Cygnus anatoides), the black-necked swan (Anser nigricollis), the antarctic goose (Anas antarctica) and the "race-horse" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... of the Iroquois were as follows: Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Tortoise, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk. (Morgan, 79.) The clans of the Snipe and the Heron are the same designated in an early French document as La famille du Petit Pluvier and La famille du Grand Pluvier. (New York Colonial Documents, IX. 47.) The ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... renowmed souldier, 240 Epaminondas (as good authors say) Had no more suites then backes, but you two shar'd But one suite twixt you both, when both your studies Were not what meate to dine with, if your partridge, Your snipe, your wood-cocke, larke, or your red hering, 245 But where to begge it; whether at my house, Or at the Guises (for you know you were Ambitious beggars) or at some cookes-shop, T'eternize the cookes trust, and score it up. Dost not ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... wood or pasture to another; now in great companies, and with protracted all-day or all-night flights. Who could ask a better stimulus for his imagination than the annual southing of this mighty host? Each member of it knows his own time and his own course. On such a day the snipe will be in such a meadow, and the golden plover in such a field. Some, no doubt, will lose their way. Numbers uncounted will perish by storm and flood; numbers more, alas, by human agency. As I write, with the sad note of a bluebird in my ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... clay.) There is Naisi was the best of three, the choicest of the choice of many. It was a clean death was your share, Naisi; and it is not I will quit your head, when it's many a dark night among the snipe and plover that you and I were whispering together. It is not I will quit your head, Naisi, when it's many a night we saw the stars among the clear trees of Glen da Ruadh, or the moon pausing to rest her on the edges of the hills. OLD WOMAN. ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... Ponto!" as he traversed the stable-yard; the delighted pointer would come bounding at the call, and, after circling round his young master with agile grace and yelps of glee at the sight of the gun, dash forward to the well-known "bottoms" in eager expectancy of ducks and snipe. How fared it all this time with the lord of Scatterbrain? He became established, for the present, in a house that had been a long time to let in the neighbourhood, and his mother was placed at the head of it, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... exclaimed. "That's frankly ridiculous! It's a favorite haunt of the Lag geese and, in a dry autumn, I don't know a better spot for snipe." ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... the Housemaids at Wusterhausen," Don't I pay them myself? objects the auditing Papa, at that latter kind of items: No more of that. "For mending the flute, four GROSCHEN [or pence];" "Two Boxes of Colors, sixteen ditto;" "For a live snipe, twopence;" "For grinding the hanger [little swordkin];" "To a Boy whom the dog bit;" and chiefly of all, "To the KLINGBEUTEL,"—Collection-plate, or bag, at Church,—which comes upon us once, nay twice, and even thrice a week, eighteenpence each time, and eats deep into our straitened means. [Preuss, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... be more entirely lost than I? When the gun fired, how should I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends, still smoking from their crime? Would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck like a snipe's? Would not my absence itself be an evidence to them of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge? It was all over, I thought. Good-by to the Hispaniola, good-by to the squire, the doctor, and the captain. There was ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and so is my bully little Nieuport. Say, old man, we've got to go out and see what's gone wrong with that little snipe ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... right, old boy, it does give one very gentlemanly ideas, so take another glass, and you'll fancy yourself an emperor.—Your good health again." "The same to you, sir. And now wot do you call this chap?" "That is a quail, the other a snipe—which will you take?" "Vy, a bit of both, I think; and do you eat these chaps with them?" "Yes, nothing nicer—artichokes a la sauce blanche; you get the real eating part, you see, by having them sent up this way, instead of like haystacks, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... were in plenty; wild ducks that swam across the lake at terrific speed as we approached; plover-snipe, tiny gray birds with long bills and white breasts, feeding along the edge of the lake peacefully at our very feet; an eagle carrying a trout to her nest. Brown squirrels came into the tents and ate our chocolate ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it is dark, and discolored, the game has been hung a long time. The wings of good ducks, geese, pheasants, and woodcock are tender to the touch; the tips of the long wing feathers of partridges are pointed in young birds, and round in old ones. Quail, snipe, and small birds should have ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... "If a snipe were the size of a threepenny bit It would be a great deal harder to hit. But if it grew to the size of an emu It wouldn't be better to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... life poor—poor as a snipe; sometimes I used to handle that very word "Snipe" a-describin' Elnathan Allen's former circumstances to Josiah, when he got ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... life. After a short rest they proceeded towards Lake Winnipeg, and soon were moving slowly down its low-lying eastern shore. Here they had their first glimpse of the prairie country, with its green carpet of grass. Out from the water's edge grew tall, lank reeds, the lurking place of snipe and sand-piper. Doubtless, in the brief night-watches, they listened to the shrill cry of the restless lynx, or heard the yapping howl of the timber wolf as he slunk {53} away among the copses. But presently the boats were gliding in through the sand-choked outlet of ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... There were boulders of rock of unknown age, dark patches of peat land, where even in midsummer the mud oozed up at the lightest footfall, pools and sedgy places, the home and sometimes the breeding place of the melancholy snipe. Of colour there was singularly little. The heather bushes were stunted, their roots blackened as though with fire, and even the yellow of the gorse shone with a dimmer lustre. But in the distance, a flaming carpet of orange and purple stretched almost to the summit of the brown hills ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 'schemes,' young man; that fake fraternity and the snipe-hunts and an examination ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... have observed of something else, "it has been praised quite enough." It is a sketch, worked out in a sort of monologue,[376] of something like Diderot's own character without his genius and without his good fellowship—a gutter-snipe of art and letters possessed of some talent and of infinite impudence. It shows Diderot's own power of observation and easy fluid representation of character and manners, but not, as I ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... The species of Snipe known in Australia are—Scolopax australis, Lath.; Painted S., Rhynchaea australis, Gould. This bird breeds in Japan and winters in Australia. The name is also used as in ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... little cane and had a little umbrella made to carry when it rained. In fact, whatever other men did this little man was anxious to do also, and so it happened that when the hunting season came around, and all the men began to get their guns ready to hunt for snipe and duck, Mr. Jimson also had a little gun made, and determined to use it as well as any ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... Rose-breasted Grosbeak Sparrow Hawk Bobolink White-headed Eagle Meadow Lark Great Horned Owl Bluejay Snowy Owl Ruffed Grouse Red-headed Woodpecker Great Blue Heron Golden-winged Woodpecker Bittern Barn-swallow Wilson's Snipe Whip-poor-will Long-biller Curlew Night Hawk Purple Gallinule Belted Kingfisher Canada Goose Kingbird Wood Duck Woodthrush Hooded Merganser Catbird Double-crested Cormorant White-bellied Nuthatch Arctic Tern Brown Creeper Great Northern Diver Bohemian ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... helping Alice to a snipe, answered carelessly, "Young lady? O, Miss Winnie Morris, sister of Wayland Morris, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... with every gust. Streams and currents of water carry others; ships and railroads give free transportation to quantities among the hay used in packing; birds and animals lift many on their feet - Darwin raised 537 plants from a ball of mud carried between the toes of a snipe! - and such feathered and furred agents as feed on berries and other fruits sometimes drop the seeds a thousand miles from the parent. but it will be noticed that such vagabonds as travel by the hook or by crook method, getting a lift in the world frpm every passer-by ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... "Snipe, by all that's wonderful!" cried Bob, firing two barrels almost as he spoke, and bringing down four birds out of a flock that bore some resemblance to, but were double ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... hope so! We are such near neighbours." She was ready to say anything that would make him feel he was not being treated as a shopman. "And did you have your day's shooting? Were you successful?" "Well," with modest pride, "I came upon snipe unexpectedly, and brought home a couple of brace. If I had thought you would condescend to accept them, Miss ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... long, stooping, gaunt and spindle-shanked, his hands big and crippled with gout: his cheeks were red after an old man's fashion, covered with a crimson network like a pippin; his lips thin and not well hiding his few teeth; his nose long like a snipe's neb. In short, a shame and a laughing-stock to the Folk, and a man whom the kindreds had in small esteem, and that for ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... those little mountain-brooks which roll their limpid waters over silver sands; hurl by through whispering ledges, the resort of snipe and woodcock; or, varying this quiet and serene existence with occasional action, dart between abrupt banks over mossy rocks, laughing as they fly onward to the ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... were any sharks in the neighbourhood; but all around was deep, clear, green water. He kept hold of the cable, however, and seemed determined not to put himself in harm's way, until a little wicked urchin, who used to wait on the warrant—officers mess, a small meddling snipe of a creature, who got flogged in well—behaved weeks only once, began to ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... six hours coming thirty-two miles: here we found the Government steamer, the Watchman, and five passengers, who had left Mobile on the 31st ultimo. They had been detained here two days, living in a log-house; their only amusement watching the ducks and snipe whirling in search of fresh feeding-ground over the dreary ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... youngster, stripling, master, youth, son, minor, junior, youngling, cadet, chap, urchin, bub, sprig, callant, younker, hobbledehoy; gamin, gutter-snipe. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... himself at the Foreign Office in London and saw the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Hammond, who gave him some parting advice. "When you reach Hongkong," said he, "never venture into the sun without an umbrella, and never go snipe shooting without top boots pulled up well over the thighs." As no snipe have ever been seen on Hongkong, the last bit of counsel was as absurd ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... Sir James had previously obtained the sanction of government, was completely successful. The detachment consisted of the Standard, sixty-four, Captain Hollies; the Owen Glendower, thirty-six; Avenger, Rose, Ranger, sloops; and Snipe, gun-boat: this was reinforced by the marines of the Victory, under Captain Peter ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... advantage, and raises his gun, quick as for the shooting of a snipe. The crack comes; and, simultaneous with it, Richard Darke is seen to drop out of his saddle, and fall face foremost on the plain— his horse, with a wild neigh, bolting away ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... some one black or pink bully in particular? Which of us is there, who has not passed moments in the company of these brutes, such as might well 'score years from a strong man's life'? Some of us have been gored by the brutes, and most of us, who have pursued the crafty snipe bird in his native padi swamps, have put in various mauvais quarts d'heure, with some of these sullenly vindictive animals mouching after us, much in the way that a gendarme pursues a gamin. Then has entered upon the scene a Delivering ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... I caught the cry of a pewit, or saw a snipe glance up from his bed; but mainly I was busied about the mare. "Let us but gain the ridge ahead," thought I, "and there is a chance." So I rode as light as I could, ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... Snipe Upland Plover Black-bellied Plover Golden Plover Semi-palmated Plover Belted Piping Plover Wilson Plover Piping Plover Killdeer Willett Greater Yellow Legs Summer Yellow Legs Turnstone Red Phalarope Northern Phalarope Avocet ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... him seems to indicate a serious turn of mind. He is sending to Murray Bay The Lady of the Lake and The Lay of the Last Minstrel whose middle-aged author was just turning from poetry to win unprecedented success as a writer of fiction. In the spring he goes out shooting for snipe nearly every day; and he sends to Murray Bay for his fishing tackle. When a fellow officer falls ill he sends him down to ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... off in the brush somewheres an' snipe Germans," Mr. Daniels pleaded. "On the level, boss, if they'll give me a Springfield rifle with telescopic sights I'll guarantee to sicken anythin' I get a fair sight on at a ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... out of Behring Sea, they marched back towards the hills, their feet ankle-deep in the soft fresh moss, while the air tasted like a cool draught and a myriad of earthy odors rose up and encircled them. Snipe and reed birds were noisy in the hollows and from the misty tundra lakes came the honking of brant. After their weary weeks on shipboard, the dewy freshness livened them magically, cleansing from their memories the recent tragedy, so that the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... surrounding villages the creatures use the most strange disguises. A dead old gentleman robs the cabbages of his own garden in the shape of a large rabbit. A wicked sea-captain stayed for years inside the plaster of a cottage wall, in the shape of a snipe, making the most horrible noises. He was only dislodged when the wall was broken down; then out of the solid plaster ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... capercailzie was proud upon the moors, where the heath-cock was as jaunty, and the willow grouse and partridge were wise in covert to avoid the hungry snowy owl. Upon the river and lagoons and creeks the swan and wild goose and countless duck made constant clamor, and there were water-rail and snipe along the shallows. There were eggs to be found, and an egg baked in the ashes was a thing most excellent. It was with the waterfowl that the boys were most successful. The ducks would in their feeding approach close to the shores of ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... too, that all male creatures are fighters by nature; they don't value things they obtain easily, and which are no trouble to keep. You must always make them realize you will be off like a snipe if they relax their efforts to please you for ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... on Saturday, from a day after snipe and teal, he found himself instinctively allotting the pick of his 'bag' to Miss Arden; just a complimentary attention; the sort of thing she would appreciate. Having refused a ride with her because of this outing, it seemed the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... change their places. The different tribes of the wading birds always migrate when rain is about to take place; and I remember once, in Italy, having been long waiting, in the end of March, for the arrival of the double snipe in the Campagna of Rome, a great flight appeared on the 3rd of April, and the day after heavy rain set in, which greatly interfered with my sport. The vulture, upon the same principle, follows armies; and I have no doubt that the augury of the ancients was a good ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various |
