IT is by observation found, that a Disease is half cured when found out: so likewise it is easie to ensnare any Creature or Fowl, if their nature is rightly understood, and what they delight in either for Food or Exercise. But these Birds are difficult to discover, lying close, and not resorting much together, especially in the Day.
The nature of the Snipe is to lye in Frosty-weather, when all Plashes are frozen, by the sides of Rivers, and always with their Heads up or down the Stream, and not thwart it; and for the finding them out, you must be expert in the knowledge of the colour of their Feathers.
The Woodcock doth usually lye on Banks by Hedges and Ditches, against the Sun; and note, that a Day after a Moonshiny-Night they will endure one to come better to find them, than after a Dark-Night, and the reason is, for that in Moonshiny-Nights they can see to feed, and will not be so still and watchful taking their rest.
Now for the taking them with Bird-Lime, you ought to be provided with about sixty or seventy Twigs, which must be exactly and smoothly Limed; and having found their haunts, which you may know by their Dung, which is generally in low Plashy places, and such as are subject to Weeds, and not frozen in Frosty-weather; and at such places set your Twigs more or less, as you think fit, at about a Yard di∣stance one from the other, and let them stand slopeing, some one way, and some another. If you design to see the Sport, you must lye con∣cealed. And if there be any other open place near to that where your Twigs are set, beat them up, or else set your Twigs also there.
'Tis said, that these Birds do put their Bills into the moist places of the Earth where they fre∣quent, and so jogging and moving them about disturbs the Worms, and cause them to come up, and so they become their Prey.