Wilson's Snipe 109 



excellent flavour, it commands a high price as a game- 

 bird, and has in consequence been nearly exterminated 

 through the greater part of its range. 



The nest, a loose structure of grass and old leaves, 

 is placed on the ground in a higher part of the swamp, 

 out of reach of the rising water. The eggs, usually four 

 in number, are buffy, mottled and spotted with reddish- 

 broAvn, and measure about 1*60 x 1"16. They lay very 

 early in the south, but judging from our only record, 

 June 10th would be about the date in Colorado. 



Genus GALLINAGO. 



Resembling Pliiloliela in most respects, but the ear-opening 

 little further back below the middle of the eye and without attenuated 

 primaries ; tail short, rounded, of sixteen feathers in the American 

 species ; markings on the head longitudinal rather than transverse. 



A nearly cosmopohtan genus with some twenty species ; only one 

 in North America. 



Wilson's Snipe. Gallinago delicata. 



A.O.XJ Checklist no 230 — Colorado Records — Aiken 72, p. 209 

 {G. wilsoni) ; Scott 79, p. 96 ; Drew 81, p. 142 ; 85, p. 18 ; Thome 

 83, p. 46 ; R.V.R.S. 86, p. 5 ; Beckham 87, p. 121 ; Morrison 86, p. 107 ; 

 88, p. 139 ; 89, p. 167 ; Cooke 97, pp. 64, 158, 199 ; Henderson 03, p. 234 ; 

 09, p. 227 ; Rockwell 08, p. 159 ; Warren 09, p. 14 ; Dille 09, p. 86. 



Description. — Male — Above chiefly black, mottled and variegated 

 with buffy and white ; crown black with a median buffy stripe ; 

 primaries and their coverts dusky, the outer one white-edged ; below, 

 the breast speckled dusky and white, the abdomen pirre white, the 

 flanks and under wing-coverts barred black and white ; tail-feathers 

 sixteen in number, the outer ones barred with black ; iris brown, bill 

 brown, paler at the base, greenish-grey in the flesh ; legs like the bill. 

 Length 9-25 ; wing 4-SO ; tail 2-10 ; cubnen 2-25 ; tarsus 1-25. 



The female is slightly larger — wing 5-25, culmen 2-5. 



Distribution. — Breeding from Alaska and Newfoundland to the most 

 south in winter as far as the West Indies and northern South America, 

 northerly row of the States and a little further south in the mountains ; 

 though often wintering further north, even in Colorado and Wyoming. 



The Snipe is far from uncommon in Colorado ; it is perhaps most 

 common on migration when it is found aU over the State ; it is also 



