Snipe Hunt  As a young cub scout going away to camp, my father
and grandparents warned me against a prank the older scouts
might play on me. “Never go on a snipe hunt,” I was warned. As
far as I could gather, it was a fool’s errand of sorts: older
boy scouts would suggest to us rookies that we chase the snipe,
a bird that was nearly impossible to find, never mind catch.
Great glory would go to the boy who caught the elusive snipe,
we’d be told. But we should resist this seemingly honorable
quest, for the snipe, as the bullies would describe it, could
never be captured because it did not exist. The snipe hunt would
inevitably end with us WeBeLos lost in some swamp while the smug
Tenderfoots raided our candy stash.  I never was sent on a snipe
hunt, but the warning left me with the impression that the snipe
was, in fact, mythological. (I believed the same about gypsies
until a trip to Europe at age 16.) This was no doubt reinforced
by my poor recollection of Lewis Carroll’s jabberwockese poem
The Hunting of the