SNIPE: Any of various long-billed shore birds of the genus Gallinago or Capella. A sniper was original someone who hunted snipe. A snipe isn't a particularly meaty bird, or a good-tasting one at that. It's uniqueness is in that of it's ability to escape hunters. It's ocnsidered one of the hardest small-prey to hit. So called "snipers" originally hunted the bird for practice, for bigger game. Eventually, many a hunter targetted the bird for honor and bragging rights, and this lead to sniping tournaments.

The definition of "Sniper" has changed a lot since then, but still based on the same idea of stalking and scouting, while the acheiving your ultimate goal of taking out your target (mostly from a concealed location, long range).



-- Steve Leo (steve@steveleo.com), October 12, 2003