"Snipe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shadow where I lie concealed, I see the birds, late banished by my form, Appearing once more in their usual haunts Along the stream; the silver-breasted snipe Twitters and seesaws on the pebbly spots Bare in the channel—the brown swallow dips Its wings, swift darting round on every side; And from yon nook of clustered water-plants, The wood-duck, slaking its rich purple neck, Skims out, displaying through the liquid glass ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... 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" or "steamer duck" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... street. His mother, if she 'knew he was out,' 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, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... 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, which broke the shock), and the lion was on the top of me, and the next those great ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... 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
... heroes of to-day are different. They are just as courageous, but they take a wheelbarrow and push it from New York to San Francisco, or they starve forty days and forty nights and then eat watermelon and lecture, or they eat 800 snipe in 800 years, or get an inspiration and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... friends. Sir William Temple's wife, Dorothea, became Dorinda; Esther Johnson, Stella; Hester Vanhomrigh, Vanessa; Lady Winchelsea, Ardelia; while to Lady Acheson he gave the nicknames of Skinnybonia, Snipe, and Lean. But all was taken by them in good part; for his rather dictatorial ways were softened by the fascinating geniality and humour which he knew so well how to employ when he used to "deafen ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... 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 ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... reckoned a wild turkey wouldn't go with a bad relish, and so I shouldered the old gun in the morning, and letting Bose follow slyly along behind, I put away out into the woods. I killed three or four pigeons, and a squirrel, and snipe; but on and on, and round, I ranged, afore I could get a single crack at a turkey. But a flock flew up at last, and one proud old Tom taking a tall maple in sight, and swinging his red gorget as if to dare a shot, I fired, and ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... will hunt the loamy swale And trail The snipe, their cunning wiles o'ercoming; And oft will flush the bevied quail, And hear the partridge slowly drumming Dull echoes ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... ther joys o' life. I've had one ounce shot inter my leg, an' if ther contents o' two shells gives double ther pain one does, then excuse me. An' mine wuz only snipe shot, at that." ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... wading-boots and wrapped a large woollen comforter round his throat and another round his head, would summon his tap-boy, unmoor the ferry-boat, and go duck-shooting. For in winter birds innumerable haunt the riverside here—wild duck, snipe, teal, and widgeon; curlews, fieldfares, and plovers, both green and golden; rooks, starlings, little white-rumped sandpipers; herons from the upper woods and gulls from seaward. Master Simon had fine sport in the short days, and the inn ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he blew for the fiftieth time into the breech of his speckless rifle. Mulcahy groaned and buried his head in his arms till a stray shot spoke like a snipe immediately above his head, and a general heave and tremour rippled the line. Other shots followed and a few took effect, as a shriek or a grunt attested. The officers, who had been lying down with the men, rose ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... Flat, bare country on every hand. Any driftwood we saw was buried in the sand and soaking wet. Not a bird to be seen except one or two snipe. We came to a lake, and out of the fog in front of me I heard the cry of a loon, but saw no living creature. Our view was blocked by a wall of fog whichever way we turned. There were plenty of reindeer tracks, but of course they were only ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... move in clouds with snap and buzz, and out of the luxurious stagnant marshes comes the ever-thickening chorus of the toads, while above them the kildees and the snipe shuttle to and fro in sounding flight. The blackbirds on the cat-tails sway and swing, uttering through lifted throats their liquid gurgle, mad with delight of the sun and the season—and over all, and laving all, moves the slow wind, heavy with the breath of the far-off blooms ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... together. This means an immense strain on the men. They remain for hours together in cramped, unnatural positions, knowing from experience that an unwise move will bring a bullet from crack marksmen told off to snipe them. ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... his lips. When his thoughts came back to her he looked happier, though he had to think of her penitently. "I was a beast," he went on, "the coldest, cruellest beast. Do you know why I raged at you when you mentioned that little snipe you call Mr. Philip? I knew it was the roughest luck on you to have gone through that time with him. But I wasn't sorry for you. I was jealous. I felt you might have protected yourself from being looked at by any other man in ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... was the French gutter-snipe, Virot—paused a moment to ride up to a window of the hall and discharge his revolver through the glass. Fortunately his aim was as evil as his intent. Beyond shattering a priceless vase, the bullet ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... steaming, Hot and breathless air. Tired of listless dreaming Through the lazy day: Jovial wind of winter Turns us out to play! Sweep the golden reed-beds; Crisp the lazy dyke; Hunger into madness Every plunging pike. Fill the lake with wild-fowl; Fill the marsh with snipe; While on dreary moorlands Lonely curlew pipe. Through the black fir-forest Thunder harsh and dry, Shattering down the snow-flakes Off the curdled sky. Hark! The brave North-easter! Breast-high lies the scent, On by holt and headland, Over heath and bent. Chime, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... Friday, and Saturday was devoted to 'clean ship,' the officers doing [Page 78] their share of the scrubbing. In the forenoon the living-spaces were thoroughly cleaned, holes and corners were searched, and while the tub and scrubber held sway the deck became a 'snipe marsh.' At this time the holds also were cleared up, the bilges pumped out, the upper deck was 'squared up,' and a fresh layer of clean snow was sprinkled over that which had been soiled by the traffic of ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... 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
... feature, and the white gulls dot the fields between Salt Lake City and Ogden in 1901 just as they did in the summer of 1848, and as Fremont found them there in September, 1843. Gulls are abundant all over the plains, and are found with the snipe and geese as far north as North Dakota. Heaven's interposition, if exercised, was not thorough, for, after the crickets, came grasshoppers in such numbers that one writer says, "On one occasion a quarter of one cloudy ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... plenty of soldiers, to help us. Instead, we are treated like the dogs of snipe-hunters; we are always sent ahead to rouse ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... myself that, in truth, not one of those languid creatures, greasy rather than fat, puffed out here and thin there, with the contour of a monk and the lower extremities of a bow-legged snipe, was worth the louis that they would get with great difficulty after ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... beginnings of the famous Sopwith machines, and especially of the single-seater biplane scout type, with its many varieties. The Sopwith 'Tabloid', the Sopwith 'Pup', the Sopwith 'Camel', and, last and best of all, the Sopwith 'Snipe', which was new at the front when the war ended—all these were engines of victory. So were the equally famous machines designed for the Government by Mr. de Havilland, of which the D.H. 4 is perhaps the greatest in achievement. Mr. de Havilland built his first machine early in 1910, at his ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... shall 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
... Selkirk on the Ettrick. From an intelligent townsman he gathered much that was true and interesting about my younger brothers, who delighted in horses and dogs, hunted, shot, and fished, and played cricket; one of them bowled for Gloucestershire and Oxford. But about me the inquiring literary snipe only heard that "Andra was aye the stupid ane o' the fam'ly." Yet, I, too, had bowled for the local club, non sine gloria! Even ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... 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 flowers. By dividing the glass unequally, by the introduction ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... feels that because it is a fact it cannot be minute, cannot be unimportant; that it must be a fact of God; a message from God; a voice of God, as Bacon has it, revealed in things; and which therefore, just because it stands in solemn awe of such paltry facts as the Scolopax feather in a snipe's pinion, or the jagged leaves which appear capriciously in certain honeysuckles, believes that there is likely to be some deep and wide secret underlying them, which is worth years of thought to solve. That is reverence; a reverence ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... 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 wing, and ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... BORKIN. Roast snipe are good too, but they must be cooked right. They should first be cleaned, then sprinkled with bread crumbs, and roasted until they will ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... chateau, or reading up in the library. We have cleaned this up now, and it is an altogether curious sensation to recline here in an easy-chair, reading some fine old book, and just taking the precaution not to stay in front of the glassless windows through which the sharpshooters can snipe at you from their posts in the thickets on the slopes of the plateau, not six hundred metres away. Sometimes our artillery opens up and then you lay down your book for a while, and, looking through a peek-hole, watch the 75's ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... 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 ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... 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
... trees are uniform in height and kind. All round us, like a hedge, is the glossy green foliage, sometimes brushing our boat on either side. And we scare up multitudes of water fowl, unused to such invasion of their solitudes. Wild duck, teal, grey snipe, shags, and many kinds that no one on board knows the names of, start from under our very bows. Not gay plumaged birds, though, for the most part; only now and then a pair of kingfishers, flashing green and orange as they fly, or the purple beauty of a pukeko, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... to-day of partridge or snipe; It has steadily rained since morning broke, In dancing spirits I kindle his pipe (I am learning to like the smell ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... is deep, and the current is swift in some places, sluggish in others. The channel winds through heavy timber lands and between high, rocky cliffs. The mountains are not far away. The fishing is splendid, and woodcock and snipe ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... in that wet ground, Griffin," he said, as he reluctantly yielded a little in his intention; "and Winchester would fancy a bird exceedingly in a day or two. I never was hit in my life that I did not feel a desire for game after the fever was gone. Snipe, too, must live on the banks of that stream. Snipe are ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... him too of an intrigue with Emilia; and, lastly, Cassio has a daily beauty in his life which makes Iago ugly. In addition to these annoyances he wants Cassio's place. As for Roderigo, he calls him a snipe, and who can hate a snipe? But Roderigo knows too much; and he is becoming a nuisance, getting angry, and asking for the gold and jewels he handed to Iago to give to Desdemona. So Iago kills Roderigo. Then for Desdemona: a fig's-end for her virtue! but he has no ill-will to her. In fact he 'loves' ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... 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 anonymous author of this document adds a ninth clan, that ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... anyone 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 nothing left for me but death by starvation, or death ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sounds, rather—which he and his companions had gabbled through as they prowled around the kitchen clashing their wooden swords. That St. George had become King William was natural enough; but what is to be said of changing the Turkish Knight into the Turkey Snipe? That was one of the "howlers" this youth perpetrated, amongst many others less striking, perhaps, but not less instructive. The whole thing showed plainly where the difficulty lay at the night-school. The breaking up of the traditional life of the village ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... was in a fine rage. A situation, unique in his forty years of experience as a lumber and shipping magnate, was confronting him, with the prospects exceedingly bright for Cappy playing a role analogous to that of the simpleton who holds the sack on a snipe-hunting expedition. He summoned Mr. Skinner into his private office, and glared at the latter over the rims of his spectacles. "Skinner," he said solemnly, "there's the very ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... vessel 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 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Jack was grown to about thirty years old, he came, most unfortunately, upon a certain Sir John Snipe, Bart., that was a very scandalous young squire of Oxfordshire, and one that had published five lyrics and a play (enough to warn any Bull against him), who spoke to ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... first part strong Gales and Squally; remainder a fresh breeze and settled weather. At 1 p.m. was obliged to take in the Topsails, but set them again at 4. At 11 a.m. saw a Bird something like a Snipe, only it had a short bill; it had the appearance of a land bird. Several Albetrosses, Pintado birds, and Sheer Waters about the Ship, and a Number of Doves; of these we have seen more or less ever since the 31st of last Month, the day we first saw them. Wind South-West; course North 59 ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... a bold sportsman may find game to his liking, and willing natives to guide him in his search after tigers, wild hogs, the huge boa, deer, snipe, and quail. In pursuit of the last, too many a fever is caught, through the imprudence of young men in staying out too late in the day, and in keeping on their wet and soiled clothes and shoes during their ride or drive home. A little attention ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... sentiment not far removed from poetry—the only poetry of which they are not half-ashamed. Audubon even joined in, forgetting for the moment his customary pose, and rhapsodizing with the rest over his favourite pursuits of snipe-shooting and cricket. Much of this talk was lost upon me, for I am nothing of a sportsman; but some touches there were that recalled experiences of my own, and for that reason, I suppose, have lingered in my memory. Thus, I recollect, ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... be difficult to convey any idea of the pleasant family life in that isolated spot tucked away amongst the Tyrone mountains; of the long tramps over the bogs after duck and snipe; of the struggles with big salmon; of the sailing-matches on the lakes; of the grouse and the woodcocks; of the theatrical performances, the fun and jollity, and all the varied incidents which make country life so fascinating to those brought ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... sure 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 his words with ...
— Options • O. Henry
... the round-ups, we never had butcher meat, and in my camp butter, eggs and milk were not known; but in winter I always had lots of good beef, potatoes, butter and some eggs from the Mormons, but still no milk. This was varied, too, by wild duck, teal and snipe shot along the ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... and the wilds to which our Saxon Icklings and Lakings have given their names, for they stretch from forest to fen, and there is no game in all England that one may not find there, from red deer to coney, wolf to badger, bustard to snipe, while there are otter and ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... from recent intoxication, the landlord was tearing madly about, his hat gone, and his hair and beard flying in the wind. He ran in little zigzags from one knot of people to another, whilst his peculiar appearance drew a running fire of witticisms as he went, so that he reminded me irresistibly of a snipe skimming along through a line of guns. We saw him stop for an instant by the yellow barouche, and hand something to Sir Lothian Hume. Then on he came again, until at last, catching sight of us, he gave a cry of joy, and ran for us full speed ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... The fever for volunteering, which laid hold on the middle 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
... Italian, in conclusion, "game never failed us; deer, turkeys, ducks, snipe, two or three bears a week. But the sublimest thing was the rich land. Ah! one must see it to believe it. Plains and forests full of animals, lakes and bayous full of fish. Ah! fortune is there. For five years I have dreamed, I have worked, with but one object in view; and today ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... The American Snipe has some of the nocturnal habits of the Woodcock, and the same habit of soaring at twilight, when he performs a sort of musical medley, which Audubon has very graphically described in the following passage:—"The birds are met ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... loud splash and cackling, up would spring a knot of ducks, their wings whirring as they rapidly beat the air in a flight wonderful for such a heavy bird. Again a little farther and first one and then another snipe would dart away in zigzag flight, uttering their strange scape, scape. And all tempting to a lad who sat there within touch of a long heavy-looking gun, which had been cleaned and polished till every ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... yellow silk, No. 2 hook. Dark Woodcock, and dark orange silk, No. 2 hook. Dottrel and yellow silk, No. 2 hook. Dark Snipe and crimson silk, No. 2 hook. Dark Snipe and purple silk, ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... with five stick-built nests in a single water-killed tree. A blue heron flopped around as though it had broken a wing, to decoy us from its nest. The snowy white pelican waddled along the banks and mingled with the cormorants. There were great numbers of gulls, and occasional snipe. We were too late to see the ducks which come here, literally by the million, during the winter months. There were hawks' nests in the same groups of trees as the cranes, with the young hawks stretching their necks ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... on a month's leave,' Charlie wrote, 'shooting; the sport will be mostly snipe and other small game, but there's a chance of tigers. Now, I know you are ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... amusement in dawdling over a lowland moor where the packs are as thick as chickens in a poultry-yard. I like better than most things a day with my own dogs in scattered covers, when I know not what may rise—a woodcock, an odd pheasant, a snipe in the out-lying willow-bed, and perhaps a mallard or a teal. A hare or two falls in agreeably when the mistress of the house takes an interest in the bag. I detest battues and hot corners, and ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... 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
... high into the sky, thus offering wonderful sport. I have seen one of these partridges soar up almost out of sight when followed by the hawk. Still better sport is offered by a variety of solitary snipe as big as a small woodcock, which is plentiful in this country, and which is flown at with a very small, agile, and highly-trained hawk with an almost red tail. The zigzagging of the great snipe and the lightning rapidity of the flight and movements of the red-tailed hawk ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... 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)
... assortment of victuals on this occasion, chiefly venison and birds, and some of the latter were baked in bread, probably a sort of paste. The majority of the names on the list are familiar, but a few—the teal, the curlew, the crane, the stork, and the snipe—appear to be new. It is, in all these cases, almost impossible to be sure how much we owe to the poet's imagination and how much to his rhythmical poverty. From another passage it is to be inferred that baked venison was a favourite mode of ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... thought you just kept them about the house for breeding. I don't care so much for pheasant shooting; I like a good walk after a snipe, or creeping along to get a wild duck much better. There's some sport in it, or even in partridge shooting with a couple of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... very careful. Use the methods of compromise. If you find your friend obstinately pinned to No. 5, when you have declared a preference for No. 6, meet him half-way, or even profess to be converted by his arguments. Or tell him the anecdote about the Irishman, who always shot snipe with No. 4, because, "being such a little bird, bedad, you want a bigger shot to get at the beggar." You can then inform him how you yourself once did dreadful execution among driven grouse in a gale of wind with No. 8 shot, which you had brought out by mistake. You may object that you never, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... indeed be heavy which a new hammerless gun by such a maker cannot do something towards lightening. So on the next morning he took this gun and went to the marshes by the river—where, he was credibly informed, several wisps of snipe had been seen—to attempt to shoot some of them and put the new weapon to ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... flicking the ash from his cigarette with the tip of his little finger. "Nark it, Pryor, nark it, blimey, they are cushy if one's not caught with a shell goin' in, if one's not bombed from the sky or mined from under the ground, if a sniper doesn't snipe 'arf yer 'ead off, or gas doesn't send you to 'eaven, or flies send you to the 'orspital with disease, or rifle grenades, pipsqueaks, and whizz-bangs don't blow your brains out when you lie in the bottom of the trench with yer nose to the ground like ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... needs no protection.... The snipe, too, like the pigeon, will take care of itself, and its yearly numbers can not be materially ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the day, take a 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
... A nide of pheasants, A wisp of snipe, A flight of doves or swallows, A muster of peacocks, A siege of herons, A building of rooks, A brood of grouse, A plump of wild fowl, A stand of plovers, A watch of nightingales, A clattering of choughs, A flock of geese, A herd or bunch of cattle, A bevy of quails, A cast ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... had had the right stuff in him he would have made good. As it was, he attended to his duties in the most perfunctory and superficial manner. He showed not the slightest interest in the business. In fact, his position could have been ably filled by the veriest gutter-snipe. And he is the man who one day, in all probability, would have come into control of the Carmody millions! And he would have scattered them in a riot of dissipation the length ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... highly chivalrous chap in questions of the fairer sex, I am yet to see why it is allowable to render the female bird a bereaved widow, but totally forbidden to make the male a widower! Or why it is permissible to slay a minute bird such as a snipe, while a titlark is on ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... and not with all, but my amorous zeal overstepped her hopes, and all the pretty ones had their turn; they were all well satisfied with me, and the sempstress was rewarded for her good offices. I was leading a delightful life, for my table was supplied with excellent dishes, juicy mutton, and snipe so delicious that I have never tasted their like except in St. Petersburg. I drank scopolo wine or the best muscatel of the Archipelago. My lieutenant was my only table companion. I never took a walk without him and two of my body-guard, in order to defend myself against the attacks of a few ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... snyte, byrde, Ibex. P.P. Asnipe or snite: abird lesse than a woodcocke. Gallinago ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... May with iris, and osier beds, and vast fields of reeds, and breadths of forest with dense thorny underwood, where all wild birds came in their season, and where all was quiet save for a bittern's cry, a boar's snort, a snipe's scream, on the lands once crowded with the multitudes that gave the eagle of Persia and the brazen trumpets of Lydia to the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... plant, which grows very plentifully in Belgium. A traveller through Belgium in the summer or early autumn should always make a point of ordering grives at a good restaurant. When grives go out of season, we have woodcock and snipe; and there are several houses which make a speciality of Becasses a la fine Champagne. At Mons and at Liege, and I think at Charleroi also, there is every year a woodcock feast, just as there is an oyster feast at Colchester. At these festivities a little wax candle ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... yer looks, Jude, an' ol' Lucy ain't a-goin' to take ye in. We gotta snipe somepin quick—or starve! Look, we'll go down to Mike's place, an' then come back here when it's out, and ye kin pinch a string, or somepin, eh? Gawd, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... kingfishers, and here and there, like sentinels on the topmost branches, a white-headed eagle, with his hooked bill, dominating the scene. Wheeling through the air were strings of duck and wisps of snipe in battalions, rows of cranes with their long legs trailing, and on the surface of the smooth water, on scores of small islands, formed originally by uprooted trees, and under the water, there were yet innumerable ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... swimmer. The 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 end of the hot season, a tennis court was made with ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... trouble, either.... I reckon," mused the adventurer, jingling his manacles thoughtfully, "I'm a back-number, anyway. When a half-grown girl, a half-baked boy, a flub like Mulready—damn his eyes!—and a club-footed snipe from Scotland Yard can put it all over me this way,... why, I guess it's up to me to go home and retire to my country-place up the Hudson." He ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... neighbouring gentry smiled good-humouredly, plunged their hands into 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 at Dowris. Neighbouring proprietors are thinking ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... food requires a certain aim or action in one direction, have bills quite straight in form, as the heron and snipe; while those which are intended to come in contact with hard substances, as breaking shells, have the bills gently curved, in order that the shock may not ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... as this that makes women desperate; and if we cannot keep him we love, we make believe to love some one else, and flaunt our fancy in the deceiver's face. Do you think I cared for Buckingham, with his heart of ice; or for such a snipe as Jermyn; or for a low-born rope-dancer? No, Fareham; there has been more of rage and hate than of passion in my caprices. And he is with Frances Stewart to-night. She sets up for a model of chastity, and is to marry Richmond next month. But we know, Fareham, we know. Women who ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... that were the pride of Emain. (Throwing in 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. Conchubor is coming, surely. I see the glare ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... to me. Bunch," I agreed, and then we went out and ordered some more three-sheets and a flock of snipe. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... window upon a balcony now, he looked down the street. The newsboy was almost below. He whistled, and the lad looked up. In response to a beckoning finger the gutter-snipe took the doorway and the staircase at a bound. Like all his kind, he was a good judge of character, and one glance had assured him that he was speeding upon a visit of profit. Half a postman's knock—a sharp, insistent stroke—and he entered, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a 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 genius of famine ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... not do to go as an officer—suspicions would be aroused, one would be allowed to see nothing, and would probably be arrested as a spy. I therefore went to stay with a friendly farmer in the neighbourhood, and went out shooting every day among the partridges and snipe which abounded there. The first thing I did was to look at the country generally, and try to think which points would be most valuable as positions ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... At that instant "Snipe," the household and post-office dog, ran across the floor with high-careering head, holding a huge ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... 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
... 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
... "Beagle". In the latter part of my school life I became passionately fond of shooting; I do not believe that any one could have shown more zeal for the most holy cause than I did for shooting birds. How well I remember killing my first snipe, and my excitement was so great that I had much difficulty in reloading my gun from the trembling of my hands. This taste long continued, and I became a very good shot. When at Cambridge I used to practise throwing up my gun to my shoulder before a looking-glass to see that I threw ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... wild cattle and a small species of elephant are said to exist on the large grass plains around Brunei in North Borneo, the only part of the island entirely free from jungle. The animal tribe, then, is reduced to the following:—Orang-utan, tiger cat, wild pig, deer, and snipe; the pretty "plandok" or mouse-deer, and honey-bears, being ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... gravy from those materials which, duly compounded with a consistence of bread and cream (y'clept bread-sauce), each to each giving double grace, do mutually illustrate and set off (as skilful goldfoils to rare jewels) your partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, teal, widgeon, and the other lesser daughters of the ark. My friendship, struggling with my carnal and fleshly prudence (which suggests that a bird a man is the proper allotment in such cases), yearneth sometimes to have thee here to pick a wing or so. I question if your Norfolk sauces ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... literature, and life. But, as I have remarked elsewhere in this volume, the Strindbergs and Wildes and Gorkis are having their day in Germany just now, and beneath this again is this large distribution of the lawless and sooty literature, frankly intended as a debauch for the gutter-snipe and his consort. Even the coarse, and in no line squeamish, Rabelais wrote that, "Science sans conscience n'est que ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... The panniers are being emptied, to make a show for Lady Rosamund's sketch. I fancy there are close on sixty brace of grouse, with some blue hares and a snipe and ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... everywhere in the Index, and occasionally in the body text. The unrelated "Olines" are birds.] Rabit [Note that the word is consistently spelled with one "b" except in the Index.] Snite [Probably a variant of "Snipe", but in some books it is understood as a different bird.] roast, toast [Both words can be applied to meats.] give it a walm [The word "walm" is always used in this construction. It appears to mean "bring to a boil". Some occurrences of "warm" may ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... shilling of it. He preserved his foxes loyally, and was quite as keen about the fishing of a little river that he owned, and which ran down from his demesne into Lough Corrib. He was particular also about his snipe, and would boast that in a little spinney at Ballytowngal were to be met the earliest woodcock found in the West of Ireland. He was a thorough sportsman;—but a Roman Catholic—and as a Roman Catholic he was hardly equal in standing to some of his Protestant neighbours. He voted for ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... being much frequented by the natives. The grass being fairly burnt up, our animals found but little to eat, but they had a tolerable journey and did not attempt to wander in search of better food. I shot a snipe near the creek, much resembling the painted snipe of India; but I had not the means with me of ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... great white chest." These sea chests being made of cheap materials, have seldom been preserved. There would appear to be in addition to the various chests already named, a hanging chest. In 1737 Sir William Pepperell wrote to England for "4 dozen pair Snipe bills to hang small chissts." This may possibly refer to snipe-bill hinges to be placed ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... round the shoulder of the hill, keeping our distance as well as we could on the steep slope, and occasionally putting up something to shoot at. My bag this time made no great demands on my powers of porterage, consisting as it did of a solitary snipe. However, when nearly an hour later we gathered at the foot of the next line of butts—the last before lunch—most of us were carrying something. Standish gleefully displayed two hares and ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... water. Our fire once started, and the dogs craftily disposed to wait the dash of the porcupine, we climbed to the top of a rain-scarred hillock of earths and looked across the scrub seamed with cattle paths, white with the long grass, and dotted with spots of level pond-bottom, where the snipe would gather ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... next turn, a fowling-piece cracked sharply, close at hand; something splashed, and the ruffled body of a snipe bobbed in ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... 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
... momentarily and draw the fire of the enemy. This was of no avail. The hidden rifle with deliberate instancy cracked once more. The fleeing cowboy, slammed as if by a club, dashed on, but his right arm hung limp. No snipe ever made half the race for life that he put up in those fleeting seconds; and by his agility he earned then and there the nickname of the bird itself, for before the deadly sights could cover his flight again he threw himself into a slight depression that effectually hid ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... of the weather, our passage from Rio Janeiro to the Bay of Conception afforded us but few opportunities to add to our collections. A snipe blown out to sea from the Rio de la Plata, a specimen of Diomedea Albatros at Terra del Fuego, a large Salpa, and a Lepas, were all we were able to obtain. The Bay of Conception presents a rich field to the ornithologist. A kind of parrot, with a long tail, and naked round the eyes, flies ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... Took the left-hand creek that comes in here, and had a hard pull over a little cataract. This should be called Summit Creek. It doesn't seem to have any name. It runs narrow, and fringed with alders. Very crooked. Saw some jack-snipe and a robin to-day, up here on the summit of the Rockies, almost at the Arctic Sea ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... lighter class of boats, called "tin-clads," were helpless against field guns, while heavy iron-clads could be driven off by riflemen protected by the timber and levees along streams. To fire ten-inch guns at skirmishers, widely disposed and under cover, was very like snipe-shooting with twelve-pounders; and in narrow waters gunboats required troops ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... countryside of long distances by windy roads, with scarcely ever a village as a focus for gossip, news flew fast. The next morning Ned Cromarty had set out with his gun towards a certain snipe marsh, but while he was still on the high road he met a man on a bicycle. The man had heard strange news and stopped to pass it on, and the next moment Ned was hurrying as fast as his long legs could take him back ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... coloured or mixed people is the same as that of the Boers, viz., the Cape Dutch. At times during the siege our advance lines and those of the Boers used to be less than 100 yards apart, and when the wily snipers of both sides saw nothing to snipe at, they used to exchange pleasantries at the expense of one another, from the safety of their entrenchments. Sometimes these wordy compliments made the opponents decidedly "chummy", to borrow a trench phrase. In that mood, they would now and again wax derisive or become amusing, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... 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 ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... I also saw a sea-snipe, or trumpet-fish, but, oho, without a tooth! He made me think of a scorpion that has ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... there are so few sources of amusement. But never fear! You can not be always reading, and when the fine weather comes you will yield to the temptation; all the more likely because you have Claudet Sejournant with you. A jolly fellow he is; there is not one like him for killing a snipe or sticking a trout! Our trout here on the Aubette, Monsieur de Buxieres, are excellent—of the salmon kind, and ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... 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 ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... The haunts of the snipe and the hern - (I shall question the two upper classes On aquatiles, when we return) - Why, I see on them absolute masses Of filix ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... 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 for them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... 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
... it to the boy to suck - and suck he did. In a few seconds his eyes dilated, his face became lividly white, and I had some trouble to tear the intoxicating bladder from his clutches. The moment I had done so, the true nature of the gutter-snipe exhibited itself. He began by cutting flip-flaps and turning windmills all round the room; then, before I could stop him, swept an armful of valuable apparatus from the tables, till the whole floor was strewn with wreck and poisonous ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... attempt to make off, is expression all over. Crege, who is one of the best amateur shots on Long Island, as a medal now in his possession will attest, had taken his number twelve, and walked the marshes for snipe. So far as the ducks were concerned, he had missed the sport, but he brought in a bunch of forty-five English snipe, which compared favorably with the success of the others. Crege is a superior marksman, but he shoots much better ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... comes to on the edge of the wood. Since you are good enough to act as my guardian pay me the income on my eighth of the fief and do not ask me to learn that Latin bosh. A man of birth is sufficiently well educated when he knows how to bring down a snipe and sign his name. I have no desire to be seigneur of Roche-Mauprat; it is enough to have been a slave there. You are most kind, and on my honour I love you; but I have very little love for conditions. I have never done anything from interested motives. I would rather remain an ignoramus than ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... 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 ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... when he rode horseback. He walked with a 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 ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... evidently inclined this morning to a fresh and kindly view of things. Nick could share her feeling but so far as was permitted by a recognition merely general of what his brother must have looked for. It might have been snipe and it might have been bristling boars. Biddy was indeed brief at first about everything, in spite of all the weeks that had gone since their last meeting; for he quickly enough saw she had something behind—something that made her gay and ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... at that jest, so Mahommed repeated it more pointedly, and the Sikh turned his back to consider the sunshine through the open door and the rising heat within. Suliman and the other little gutter-snipe proceeded to make friends with the whole gang promptly, giving as good as they got in the way of repartee, and nearly starting a riot until Grim called Ali Baba into the dining-room, where de Crespigny was shaking up the ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... indeed he was surprised to find himself fully alive to the delight of forcing his way through a furze-brake, hearing the ice in the peaty bogs crackle beneath his feet; getting a good shot, bringing down his bird, finding snipe, and diving into the depths of the long, winding valleys and dingles, with the icicle-hung banks of their streamlets. He came home through the village at about half-past three o'clock, sending the keeper to leave some of his game at the parsonage, while he went himself to see how the work was ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... faint bleat, as of a new-born lamb, high above her head; she started and looked up. Then a wail from the cliffs, as of a child in pain, answered by another from the opposite rocks. They were but the passing snipe, and the otter calling to her brood; but to her they were mysterious, supernatural goblins, come to answer to her call. Nevertheless, they only quickened her expectation; and the witch had told her not to fear them. If she performed the rite duly, nothing would harm her: but she could hear ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... we wished. At the two others there is such an abundance of birds of different sorts that one could not imagine it, if he had not seen them. There are cormorants, three kinds of duck, geese, marmettes?, bustards, sea-parrots, snipe, vultures, and other birds of prey; gulls, sea-larks of two or three kinds; herons, large sea-gulls, curlews, sea-magpies, divers, ospreys, appoils?, ravens, cranes, and other sorts which I am not acquainted with, and which also make their nests here. [34] We ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... of casual or accidental appearance in Greenland. The bird does not differ essentially from our Snipe and its habits ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... seen more frequently in the neighbourhood than in most parts of England: his croak over head is not at all an uncommon sound. A pair of buzzards will occasionally circle aloft for a considerable time. The snipe is found very early on the Forest, so much so that I have known in the month of July six killed in a day. The jack snipe particularly abounds about 'the Dam Pool.' The bittern has been twice shot near the same spot within the last twenty years. ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... Reybold. I suppose you do not have the snipe in the Nawth. It is the aristocratic fowl of the Old Dominion. Its bill is only shorter than its legs, and it will not brown at the fire, to perfection, unless upon a silver spit. Ah! when the Jedge and myself were young, before his land troubles ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... 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 river ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... up!" Frank cried at last. "I'll bet these canyon walls never looked down on such a rotten little cur as you are in all their history. You gambling, indecent little gutter snipe, isn't there a ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow |
