The birds being such great migrants, and only in the country for a short time, I had no mercy on them and killed all I could, for a snipe once missed might never be seen again.
I shot with only one gun at a time; had no loader, but loaded my gun myself; had I shot with two guns and had a loader I would, of course, have killed a great many more birds, but in those days and in those parts it was impossible to get a man that could be trusted to load.
During the 20 years from 1867 to 1887 he shot, on his favorite hunting grounds in Louisiana, 69,087 snipe and a total of 71,859 of all game birds; but his shooting fell off during the next 10 years for he increased his grand total of snipe to only 78,602 and of all game birds to only 82,101! His best day, undoubtedly a world's record, was December 11, 1877, when he shot in six hours 366 snipe and 8 other birds. On his best seven consecutive shooting days, alternate days in December, 1877, he killed 1,943 snipe and 25 other birds. During the winter of 1874-75 he killed 6,615 snipe. Captain Bogardus, the famous trap shot, killed, with the help of a friend, 340 snipe on one day in Illinois, and seldom got less than 150 on good days. With such excessive shooting all through the fall, winter, and spring, is it to be wondered at that the snipe have decreased in numbers?
_Winter._--As mentioned above snipe spend the winters in small numbers as far north as they can find unfrozen marshes and spring holes, but their main winter resorts are in the Southern States, the West Indies, and northern South America. They were formerly enormously abundant in the marshes and savannas of Florida and the other Gulf States, where they are still common in winter. C. J. Pennock tells me that they are still abundant all winter about St. Marks, Florida, his earliest and latest dates being September 12 and May 10. Arthur T. Wayne (1910) says that, in South Carolina, the snipe "are most abundant during the months of February and March, and at that time multitudes frequent the rice plantations, provided the water is not too deep over the land." J. H. Bowles (1918) says that in Washington "cold weather does not seem to bother them much. On January 1, 1916, when all fresh-water marshes were frozen over, large numbers of them gathered on the Tacoma Flats." Mr. Skinner writes to me that in Yellowstone Park they are found in winter along creeks and rivers kept open by warm springs and on ground overflowed by warm water from the hot springs.