i96] Nesting of Wilson's Snipe. 53 



NESTING OF WILSON'S SNIPE. 



On the 17th ol May, 1905, as I was passing through a patch 

 of low ground overgrown with second-growth willows, a rather 

 large-sized bird flushed from a spot a few feet from where I had 

 jumped over a neck of water. I did not see the exact place from 

 which the bird had flown, but the fluttering sound of her wing 

 caught my ear, and looking ahead I saw the creature, who with 

 outspread tail and wings, was fluttering on the damp earth, and 

 with her long bill down in the mud was giving vent to a series of 

 squeaking sounds. I knew at once that this bird had flushed from 

 a nest, and that the object of her actions was to draw my atten- 

 tion from something that she was very desirous to conceal ; but a 

 little research revealed a nest containing four beautiful eggs. 

 These were of a glossy yellow or olive hue, heavily blotched on 

 the larger end, and marked all over the surface with varying spots 

 of brownish-black; and, as I afterward noted, were about one-third 

 incubated. In size they were about one and a half inches in 

 length by one and one-tenth broad. A clump of willows a 

 little elevated stood about six feet from the pool over which the 

 bird had flown, and midway between the water and the willows, 

 which overhung it, the nest was placed. This was simply a 

 slight depression made by the bird in the moss and dry grass, and 

 except from its concealed situation and being a little more ex- 

 panded, there was no particular distinction between it and those 

 of the more familiar killdeer plover and spotted sandpiper, though 

 the lining was probably of a warmer texture, being of fine dry 

 grass, while the eggs, as in the case of all the ground-nesting 

 waders, were arranged with the small ends inward. At that time 

 I was not aware that "the snipe," of which there is but one 

 species to be found in Ontario, had become a summer resident of 

 our neighborhood ; and as there were reasons for helieving that 

 the woodcock nested here, I did not pay the attention to the flut- 

 tering bird across the pool that the case required, and so made 

 the serious mistake that the nest and eggs before me were those 

 of the latter bird. On comparing those eggs with a specimen of 

 the e^gr of the woodcock I saw at once that there was a wide 

 difference not, however, so much in size or form as in color and 



