Twenty Years' Snipe-Shooting: Extracts from the Daily Journal of the Game-Books of the Snipery (1899)

Twenty Years' Snipe Shooting is a detailed, methodical daily account of Pringle's best days afield during 1867-1887, as extracted from his shooting journals. The practice of recording each day's hunt was common in Europe but infrequent in North America. Julius Pringle, a wealthy planter, owned Torwood Plantation in Pointe Couple Parish northwest of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He also had holdings near Franklin, Louisiana such as Ashley, Ironwood, and Camperdown, and a plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina. During his last years of shooting, Pringle noted the decline in snipe numbers. He blamed the loss of habitat as the cause. This is very often the chief reason for a species' decline, especially in recent times, but in Pringle's era the snipe was also a victim of overshooting. Today many of Pringle's shooting fields produce sugarcane rather than snipe. This book is a fascinating account of hunting in the late 1800's. Illustrated.