Wilson's snipe. 185 



WILSON'S SNIPE. 



(Scolopax TVilsonii, Temm. Bonap. Sjn. No. 268. Richard. North. 

 Zool. ii. p. 401. Snipe, (Scolopax gallinago,) Wilson, vi. p. 18. 

 pi. 47. fig. 1. Pliil. Museum, No. . . .) 



Sp. Charact. — Tail graduated, of 16 feathers, with black subter- 

 minal bars ; the outermost with 5 bars of black and whitish, and 

 only half as broad as the middle feathers of the tail; rump dusky, 

 faintly mottled and barred with pale yellowish-brown. 



The Snipe of North America, so nearly related to that 

 of Europe, is found according to the season, in every part 

 of the continent, from Hudson's Bay to Cayenne, and does 

 not appear indeed sufficiently distinct from the Brazilian 

 Snipe of Swainson, which inhabits abundantly the whole of 

 South America as far as Chili. Many winter in the marsh- 

 es and inundated river grounds of the Southern States of 

 the Union, where they are seen in the month of February, 

 frequenting springs and boggy thickets ; others proceed 

 along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and even penetrate 

 into the equatorial regions. 



By the second week in March, they begin to revisit the 

 marshes, meadows, and low grounds of the Middle States, 

 and soon after they arrive in New England. In mild and 

 cloudy weather, towards evening, and until the last rays of 

 the setting sun have disappeared from the horizon, we hear, 

 as in the north of Europe, the singular tremulous murmur- 

 ings of the Snipes, making their gyratory rounds so high in 

 the air as scarcely to be visible to the sight. This hum- 

 ming, or rather flickering and somewhat wailing sound,* 

 has a great similarity to the booming of the Night Hawk 



* Like hcoho Vio ^ho ^ho ^koo, quickly repeated ; or the hooting of the small owl, 

 (^Striz asio.) 



16* 



