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Snipe   Listen
noun
Snipe  n.  
1.
(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of limicoline game birds of the family Scolopacidae, having a long, slender, nearly straight beak. Note: The common, or whole, snipe (Gallinago coelestis) and the great, or double, snipe (Gallinago major), are the most important European species. The Wilson's snipe (Gallinago delicata) (sometimes erroneously called English snipe) and the gray snipe, or dowitcher (Macrohamphus griseus), are well-known American species.
2.
A fool; a blockhead. (R.)
Half snipe, the dunlin; the jacksnipe.
Jack snipe. See Jacksnipe.
Quail snipe. See under Quail.
Robin snipe, the knot.
Sea snipe. See in the Vocabulary.
Shore snipe, any sandpiper.
Snipe hawk, the marsh harrier. (Prov. Eng.)
Stone snipe, the tattler.
Summer snipe, the dunlin; the green and the common European sandpipers.
Winter snipe. See Rock snipe, under Rock.
Woodcock snipe, the great snipe.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Snipe" Quotes from Famous Books



... lately that an American 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 island. There are no rivers in Col; but only some brooks, in which there ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... frogs leapt into the pools and runnels, burying themselves in the mud at the shock of a footstep; but the tadpoles sported recklessly in the sunny water, for as yet their legs as well as their troubles were to come. I confess that this long morass by the sparkling Beuene, frequented by the heron, the snipe, the water-hen, and other creatures that seek the solitude, interested me more than the caverns which I had set out to see. I nevertheless followed the old man into them, and tried to admire all that he showed me; but there was not a stalactite ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... 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 coming ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... eye of the sportsman—and the Lancashire gentlemen of the sixteenth century were keen lovers of sport—the country had a strong interest. Pendle forest abounded with game. Grouse, plover, and bittern were found upon its moors; woodcock and snipe on its marshes; mallard, teal, and widgeon upon its pools. In its chases ranged herds of deer, protected by the terrible forest-laws, then in full force: and the hardier huntsman might follow the wolf ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... wilsonii) needs no protection.... The snipe, too, like the pigeon, will take care of itself, and its yearly numbers can not be materially lessened ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... 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 Angel, in the shape of a very ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... MUTTON. To make mutton taste like venison, provide for it the following gravy. Pick a very stale woodcock or snipe, and cut it to pieces, after having removed the bag from the entrails. Simmer it in some meat gravy, without seasoning; then strain it, and serve ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... 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 ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and were no more. Nor did there seem to be any reason for this extraordinary conduct except—except—— Well, it is true that a willow-grouse, white as the snowy branch he sat upon, did start clucking somewhere in the dim tree regiments, a snipe did come whistling sadly over the tree-tops, and a raven, jet against the white, did flap up, barking sharply, above the pointed pine-tops; but that was nothing—to us. To the wolverines it was everything, a whole wireless message in the universal ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... 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 ...
— Options • O. Henry

... that where it had been dry in spring one might now sink to his knees in the bog; also that the snipe which had vanished for a season were back at the old spot where they used to breed. It was a bitter day near the end of an unpleasant summer, with the wind back in the old hateful north-east quarter; but the sun shone, the sky was blue, and the flying clouds were of a dazzling whiteness. Shivering, ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... 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 ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... and inspiring. Certainly not the blue heron, standing midleg deep in the water, obviously catching cold in a reckless disregard of wet feet and consequences; nor the mournful curlew, the dejected plover, or the low-spirited snipe, who saw fit to join him in his suicidal contemplation; nor the impassive kingfisher—an ornithological Marius —reviewing the desolate expanse; nor the black raven that went to and fro over the face of the marsh continually, but evidently couldn't make up his ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... up to the period of birth in man, as well as in other animals, as anatomists in general have described them, but for several months subsequently, in some indeed for several years, not to say for the whole course of life; as, for example, in the goose, snipe, and various birds and many of the smaller animals. And this circumstance it was, perhaps, that imposed upon Botallus, who thought he had discovered a new passage for the blood from the vena cava into the left ventricle of the heart; and I own that when I met with the same arrangement ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... clans 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 anonymous author of this document adds a ninth clan, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... will be quite 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 they do no harm to the people, if they are not meddled with, but that they steal the ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... 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 ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... numerous and varied tits; wagtails; five species of parrots; eight or nine species of wren; thrushes of a dozen species; ten species of robin; and, lastly, many species of waders such as florekin, cranes, plovers, snipe, sandpipers, coots, water-hen, storks, heron, cormorants, terns, ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband

... case," said Rose-Pompon, laughing, "your father was not a gutter-snipe by trade, but only for the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... tasks. The week's work ended on 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 week. Then a free afternoon for ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... where there were nests there were eggs. The birds congregated here in such numbers, because rocks provided them with thousands of cavities for their dwelling-places. In the distance a few herons and some flocks of snipe indicated ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... shot 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 over the tops of the palmetto to ascertain what was approaching. ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... in the pools—in short, with the poorest sort of gun I could have shot a thousand in one day. One can hear the wild geese calling.... There are lots of them here too. One often comes upon a string of cranes or swans.... Snipe and woodcock flutter about in the birch copses. The hares which are not eaten or shot here, stand on their hindlegs, and, pricking up their ears, watch the passer-by with an inquisitive stare without the slightest misgiving. They are so often running across the road that to see them doing ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... His cross, how comes it that this snipe of a stripling may speak from his mouth of what lieth beyond the grave? For this is death, and death is a matter concerning Holy Church alone. By what right doth he tell us of what she says no mortal ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various

... of grouse. I see no 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 slaughter for slaughter's sake. I wish every tenant in England had his share in amusements which ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... 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 a rat in a trap. If it wasn't for these ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... crooked; I don't care how straight you put it in the ground, it's goin' to grow crooked. So I climb up in the mosely tree and begin to yell. My brother heard me and come 'cause he knowed what was up. He used to say, 'Now, Snipe, when you come 'cross that mosely field, don't you wear that old red dress 'cause they'll get you down and tear that dress off you.' I liked the dress 'cause he had give it to me. I had set the milk down at the foot of the tree and it's a wonder they didn't knock it over, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... 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

... too, into deep dark water-holes, only connected by gravelly fords, with a slender stream of clear water running across the yellow pebbles. These water-holes were the haunts of the platypus and the tortoise. Here, too, were flocks of black duck and teal, and as you rode past, the merry little snipe would rise from the water's edge, and whisk away like lightning through the trees. Altogether a pleasant woodland creek, alongside of which, under the mighty box-trees, ran a sandy road, bordered with deep beds of bracken ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... unconvinced, so we went on. The rushes were shining in the moonlight, and one flake of mist was lying on the river. We looked into one bog-hole, and then into another, where a snipe rose and terrified us. We listened: a cow was chewing heavily in the shadow of a bush, two dogs were barking on the side of a hill, and there was a cart far away upon the road. Our teeth began to chatter with the cold of the bog air and the loneliness of ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge

... 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

... 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 ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... 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 ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... them in a mirepoix made with plenty of ham, fat bacon, herbs, and a wine glass of Marsala. When they are cooked pour off the sauce, skim off the grease and reduce it. Take the two smallest snipe and make a forcemeat of them by pounding them in a mortar with the livers of all the snipe, then dilute this with reduced Espagnole sauce (No. 1) and add it to the first sauce. Cut twelve croutons of bread just large enough to hold a snipe ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... 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 are plentiful." ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... we 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 in the ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... 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 throw from ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... 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 ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... of patridges, 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, ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... 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 valet-de-chamer; ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... others. We see a handsome 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 ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... continent. In addition to the spurred lapwing, characteristic and most 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 of the ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... 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 ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... miles across the country join the boat again, the bend rendering it necessary for her to go around some thirty or forty miles. This we gladly assented to, and taking my gun, in hopes of meeting with some snipe in the paddy-fields, and with Aling and a ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... 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 holt of the ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... command the counsellor sent the Snipe and the Turnstone, Aiwohikupua's swiftest messengers, to go up and find out the truth about ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous

... the bog 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 ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... chimney-corner. "But I hope it is not my wood that he's burning... Ah, it was this time last year that I met with that man Venn, bringing home Thomasin Yeobright—to be sure it was! Well, who would have thought that girl's troubles would have ended so well? What a snipe you were in that matter, Eustacia! Has your husband written to ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... shooting 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

... which is watered by pure and limpid springs that gush from the mountain heights, and roll in a meandering course to join the waters of the lake. These pasture grounds constitute Jala-Jala the greatest game preserve in the island: wild boars, deer, buffaloes, fowls, quail, snipe, pigeons of fifteen or twenty different varieties, parrots—in short all sorts of birds abound in them. The lake is equally well supplied with aquatic birds, and particularly wild ducks. Notwithstanding its extent, the island produces neither noxious nor carnivorous animals; the only ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... four pounds weight. While Archer, who had gone forth with Garry only in the canoe, had picked up half a dozen wood-duck, two or three of the large yellow-legs, a little bittern, known by a far less elegant appellative throughout the country, and thirteen English snipe. ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... 5, we saw a seal asleep upon the water, and several bunches of sea-weed. The next day we saw more seaweed in bunches, and on the 29th, a bird, which we thought a land bird; it somewhat resembled a snipe, but had a short bill. On the 1st of October, we saw birds innumerable, and another seal asleep upon the water; it is a general opinion that seals never go out of soundings, or far from land, but those that we saw in these seas prove the contrary. Rock-weed is, however, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... 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

... the gathering gloom of night could be seen a tall blue heron, standing midleg deep in water, obviously catching cold in his reckless disregard for wet feet and consequences. The mournful curlew, the dejected plover and the low-spirited snipe, who sought to join him in his suicidal contemplations, the raven, soaring through the air on restless wings, croaking his melancholy complaints were not calculated to add to the ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... 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

... people they were who claimed last week that winter had come, because it was a little chilly, when he could have told them, by half a century's experience, that the most beautiful part of the year was to come, the Indian summer, the lazy days when you want to shoot snipe, and eat grapes, and have appendicitis. The red-headed boy came out yawning, half awake, and raised his arms and stretched until it seemed that he ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck

... 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 ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... presented 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 as ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... here, and a day in November: the day after I finished husking. Huldah 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 ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... simple, and meritorious that, to the beholders, should be a profound and an everlasting lesson. "Just look at 'im, 'ee knows what's what—never fear!" he exclaimed now and then, flourishing a hand hard and fleshless like the claw of a snipe. Jimmy, on his back, smiled with reserve and without moving a limb. He affected the languor of extreme weakness, so as to make it manifest to us that our delay in hauling him out from his horrible confinement, and then that night spent on the poop among our selfish neglect of his needs, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... last sixty years long lines of houses have sprung up, concealing beneath unpromising exteriors, such as only London houses can show, comfort enough and to spare. This is a favourite residential quarter, though we now consider it in, not "conveniently near," town. Snipe were shot in the marshes of Brompton, and nursery gardens spread themselves over the area now devoted to the museums and institute. It is rather interesting to read the summary of John Timbs, F.S.A., writing so late as 1867: "Kensington, a mile and a half west of Hyde Park Corner, ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... gravely. "Your reasoning seems clear as 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

... larks, The lapwing and the snipe, And tune their songs, like Nature's clerks, O'er meadow, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... care what they call me, so long as they don't call me too late for dinner. Father and mother, whoever they were, when they ran away from me, didn't run away with my appetite. I wonder how long master means to play with his knife and fork. As for Mr Brookes, what he eats wouldn't physic a snipe. What's your ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... 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 and ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... me, and then we began to converse about the game. Westchester was, and is still, famous for partridges, snipe, quails, ducks, and meadow-larks; and I understood expatiating on such a subject, as well as the best of them. All the Littlepages were shots; and I have known my father bag ten brace of woodcock, among the wet thickets of Satanstoe, of a morning; and ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... 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 ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... 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 when the boys gather about the table at the ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff

... powder to little purpose, for Tom, the best shot among them, had only killed one snipe, a troop of horses, led by several black cavaliers, dressed in leathern caps and high hoots, with belts round their waists, and duck-guns slung over their shoulders, and followed by a pack of hounds, made their appearance. Their leader announced that they were the ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... Jack Snipe who provided winter shooting for the whole of Kerry, and not one of them ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various

... barren moors appeared in the dim and melancholy distance, the feelings they inspired were those of discomfort and depression. On each side of them were a variety of lonely lakes, abrupt precipices, and extensive marshes; and as our travellers went along, the hum of the snipe, the feeble but mournful cry of the plover, and the wilder and more piercing whistle of the curlew, still deepened the melancholy dreariness of their situation, and added to their anxiety to press on towards the place of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... "down to Essex to see if I can get a few duck or snipe on the fens. I wish you were coming ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... snapped viciously. "What's the matter with you! You'll be well paid for it—and have police protection. You ought to know what that'll mean to you—eh? You live like a gutter-snipe here—half starved most of the time, for all you can get out ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... here in the trenches Me heart's a-splittin' with spleen, For a parcel o' lead comes missing me head, But it smashes me old dudeen. God blast that red-headed sniper! I'll give him somethin' to snipe; Before the war's through Just see how I do That ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service

... killed, and found the venison to be fat and of high flavour. They saw a light grey fox; and a spotted white and black animal, somewhat larger than the weasel, with short ears, and a long tail. The island abounds with small snipes, similar to the English jack-snipe. The ducks were hatching their eggs, and many wild geese ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... to wait the dash of the porcupine, we climbed to the top of a rain-scarred hillock of earth, 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 in winter. ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... tete-a-tete with Keene on the previous evening after a hard day's snipe shooting, and bore evident traces about him of a heavy night—a fact which he lost no time in alluding to, not without a certain pride, like the man in Congreve's play, who exults in having "been drunk in excellent company." ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... furniture, so 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 flowers. By dividing the glass unequally, by the introduction into ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... almost with commiseration, for she was 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 ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... 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 ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley

... just a rotten little snipe, but he does mischief as Harietta's tool—and through his ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... 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[obs3], duck, grouse, plover, rail, snipe. [domesticated mammals] horse &c. (beast of burden) 271; cattle, kine[obs3], ox; bull, bullock; cow, milch cow, calf, heifer, shorthorn; sheep; lamb, lambkin[obs3]; ewe, ram, tup; pig, swine, boar, hog, sow; steer, stot[obs3]; tag, teg[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... extraordinary blue—the blue of the wild chicory. When the boy glanced up or down, there was great play of dark lashes, long, and amazingly thick. This would have been charming on a girl, but seemed somehow affected in a boy, though one could hardly have accused the little snipe of making his own eyelashes. He wore a very loose-trousered knickerbocker suit of navy-blue; a white silk shirt or blouse, loose also, with a turned-down Byronic collar and a careless black bow underneath. He had extremely small hands, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... though he did manage to pay his bills annually, spent every 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 ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... helping Alice to a snipe, answered carelessly, "Young lady? O, Miss Winnie Morris, sister of Wayland Morris, editor ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... us plenty of soldiers, to help us. Instead, we are treated like the dogs of snipe-hunters; we are always sent ahead ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... 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

... was his abstract of title. There was nothing said about records and patentees as long as you worked your ground; but, likewise, when you didn't work it, somebody else usually did. We had a thousand feet of as good dirt as ever laid out in the rain; but there was men around drulin' to snipe it, and I knowed it was risky to leave. However, I saw what was gnawin' at the boy, and if ever a man needed a friend and criminal lawyer, that was the time. According to the zodiac, certain persons, to the complainant unknown, had a mess ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... sharp slap at his hat. Instinct works on all brave men very 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 ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... 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 and ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... 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 ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various

... with the waiter by inquiring. When that functionary recommended a bite of broiled tenderloin, prepared with Madeira sauce, and the addition of fresh mushrooms and a small sweetbread, he allowed himself to be persuaded. An English snipe, with chicory salad and some cheese, with coffee, completed his order. Oh, and a ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... stroll through the streets of Arras, after the Ridge was in our possession, had to be seen to be appreciated. Heretofore such a thing as a pleasure walk or shopping tour was out of the question, as the sniping was continuous, and the only way now for Fritz to snipe the town was with his heavy naval pieces, six or seven miles off, and as these visitors are a hundred times scarcer than the callers from the short range boys, the peace and quiet of our fellows were ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... 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 and ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... to see if there 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

... can spend the day with much comfort, which is a wonderful provision of nature. At the present moment he also is engaged in the operation of weeding. In his right hand is a small species of sickle called a koorpee, with which he investigates the root of each weed as a snipe feels in the mud for worms; then with his left hand he pulls it out, gently shakes the earth off it, and contributes it to a small heap beside him. When he has cleared a little space round him, he moves on like a toad, without ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... on Friday week, and is as happy as can be, he says he never felt so well and never had such good snipe shooting. Little Darfour's amusement at Maurice is boundless; he grins at him all the time he waits at table, he marvels at his dirty boots, at his bathing, at his much walking out shooting, at his knowing no Arabic. The dyke burst the other day ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... kind. I had come from above and was going down. She had come from the dregs; she was going up. We met on the way. I married her, not because I loved her, but because she loved me and I could not understand it. She was a lonely, tired little gutter-snipe, who had gone on the stage, had had no success whatever, and whose pale red hair was always stringing down around her neck and eyes; but even then I could not see why she picked me out for her devotion. She was like a dog ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... good, And, turning on the poor hen, He clapt his hands, and stamped, and shooed, Hunting the exile tow'rd the wood, To house with snipe and moorhen. 80 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... and pudgy as a snipe— Well worth her weight in gold, Of honest, clean, conspicuous type, And just the size ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... his 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, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... 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 is placed on the table beside ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard

... to show where in April the noisy Goose engulfs everything within reach of its foaming wings. The creek bed becomes in midsummer a mere sandy ford that may be crossed by a child—a dry map that prints the running feet of snipe and plover, the creeping tread of the mink and the muskrat, and the slouching trail of the coyote and ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... keeping watch, when Harpstenah was called by her mother to assist her. The father's morning meal was prepared early, for he was going out to hunt. Wild duck, pigeons, and snipe, could be had in abundance; the timid grouse, too, could be roused up on the prairies. Larger game was there, too, for the deer flew swiftly past, and had even stopped to drink on the opposite shore ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... 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 ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... crossed by many streams, holding many pools, blue-fringed in 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 ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... dance had concluded, Terence led his glowing partner to a cool quiet corner, where leaving her, he flew to the side table, and in less time than he would take to bring down a snipe, he was again beside her with a large mugful of hot negus, into which he had put, by way of stiffener, a copious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... fires off his gun every half hour. The troops are quite happy; if anyone grumbles they are sent up to the trenches, where George Graves and Sarah Bernhardt let off crackers. The battalion snipers are put in the opposite trench and told to snipe the trench opposite them. Occasionally they hit a man, and then there is a casualty list, and some General gets sent home in disgrace. Gallipoli is ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack

... 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 which is growing, thank God, more ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... 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 ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton



Words linked to "Snipe" :   blackguard, Gallinago gallinago, Gallinago media, whang, track down, sniper, Wilson's snipe, criticise, rip, red-breasted snipe, dowitcher, whole snipe, pick apart, rubbish, barrage, whip, snipe hunt, half snipe, assault, assail, jacksnipe, abuse, sharpshoot, blast, round, knock, great snipe, run, blister, Limnocryptes minima, vitriol, criticize, shout, Gallinago gallinago delicata



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