Snipes

This evening, after our usual TV fare (currently: Shetland, on BritBox—yep, we're keeping it for at least another month; then, oh look, there's a relatively new, and final season, of Goliath on Amazon!), we wound down, as we often do, with an episode of Cheers. Here's a bit of "The Heart Is a Lonely Snipe Hunter," in which Sam, Norm, Cliff, and a couple of other Cheers regulars have taken Frasier on a snipe hunt:

Even though I know the term "snipe hunt," all the while I'm watching this I'm thinking, but there is such a thing as a snipe! It's a bird: three genera, 26 species. Here's one of them, the Wilson's Snipe (Gallinago gallinago):

In fact, the word sniper comes from the bird—specifically, the verb "to snipe," "which originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India in reference to shooting snipes, a wader that was considered an extremely challenging game bird for hunters due to its alertness, camouflaging color and erratic flight behavior."

So I had to look up "snipe hunt." Yes, it's a practical joke, in which more experienced people trick a rube into waiting with a canvas bag to catch the elusive "snipe"—which may be "a cross between a jackrabbit and a squirrel; a squirrel-like bird with one red and one green eye; a small, black, furry bird-like animal that only comes out during a full moon"—and so on. It's apparently a common summer camp or Boy Scouts trick.

David, who was an Eagle Scout, said he'd never been duped into a snipe hunt—or its equivalent in his scout troop, a hunt for a "left-handed smoke shifter." Or as it's also called, hunting for a "bacon stretcher" or "praying to the trio of great Indian gods Owa, and T'goo and Siam"—or in David's scout troop again, Owa, Tana, and Siam.

In fact, of course, it's a form of hazing. And I felt uncomfortable watching the Cheers episode—until Frasier revealed that he was not as gullible as they all thought. But still...

A couple of years ago on a birding tour (no, we didn't see any snipes), one of my fellow travelers got on the bus that was sitting at the curb outside our hotel and was waiting patiently for the rest of us to climb aboard. But she was on the wrong bus. I went and told her so. A British fellow in our group scolded me, said it would have been fun to see her reaction when she was surrounded by strangers. I simply do not understand such mean-spiritedness. Yes, we all need to know how to laugh at ourselves. But to be set up by people we should be able to trust? It makes no sense. 

I do not approve of hazing. It's a power play, and it preys on the unsuspecting and weak, or simply the trusting. Which I myself tend to be...

Here's an article on hunting for actual snipes. And here's another snipe, the Greater Painted (Rostratula benghalensis):