230 WILD WINGS 



noon they were gone, and in the evening I saw the old birds 

 a third of a mile away on a salt marsh, whither they had 

 evidently led their brood. 



Besides the breeding Horned Grebes, Bitterns, Red-breasted 

 Mergansers, Black Ducks, Blue-bills, and Teal of these inter- 

 esting East Point ponds, another striking phenomenon is the 

 gyration and " love-song " of the Wilson's Snipe. This is 

 the bird so dear to sportsmen, here breeding quite commonly. 

 We first heard a sweet winnowing or twittering sound some- 

 where above us, reminding one of the sound of the wings 

 of the Golden-eye Duck, or " Whistler," in flight. Though 

 we strain our eyes in scanning the blue vault, nothing is at 

 hrst visible. Finally we see what looks like a speck of a bird, 

 so high uj) is it. The wings move rapid! v, and with great 

 velocity it darts about in wide circles, far and wide, high and 

 low. It may at length dash close down over our heads, utter- 

 ing now a continuous vocal alarm-note, somewhat after the 

 style of the CoojDer's Hawk. The first thing we know it will 

 alight pell-mell upon the topmost twig of a spruce, whence it 

 will (^ontinue its sharp vociferation, or stand for a while in 

 silence, when it mav start off again on another ten-mile flight. 

 When an intruder aiDjDroaches the nest, both birds will fly 

 about in this erratic manner. 



The nest is hard to find, and I have tramped and tramped, 

 searching for it in vain. But this season one of our party 

 undertook to watch a pair of snipe from a hiding-place. In 

 the course of half an hour he saw one of them alight in the 

 grass on the edge of a sort of marshy bayou, back from 

 a large pond. Waiting a few moments, he walked up and 

 soon flushed the bird a few rods from where she had 

 alighted. On damp ground, amid a tract of low bushes and 

 sparse grass, was the long-sought nest, containing four dark- 

 colored, mottled eggs, rounder and less pointed than the eggs 



