THERE is something wonderfully provoking and also exciting, in the careless hither-and-thither flight of a snipe,’ mused Lord Walsingham and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey in the Shooting Moor and Marsh edition of The Badminton Library, instigated by the 8th Duke of Beaufort. Writing in 1887, the duo noted that the best snipe shooting ‘is to be had in large wet grass fields and comparatively dry bogs, where, though the water splashes at every step, it rarely reaches the ankle’ and lamented that these small, stocky waders—which weigh only 3–4oz—are ‘very erratic in their movements, suddenly reaching, and as quickly leaving, their most favourite haunts’.
In doing so, they sum up why so many sportsmen have long sought to pursue, collectively known as a ‘wisp’, often with little success: ‘The fact is snipe-shooting is a “toss up”—that is the beauty of it… you may find many birds; you may find none… good and bad sport with them is such a lottery, that at length it
