174 WADING BIRDS. 



April, my attention was called to the same invisible voice, 

 which issued from the floating clouds of a dark evening ; the 

 author was here called the Alewife Bird, from its arrival with 

 the shoals of that fish in the neighboring lake. From the ele- 

 vation at which the sound issued, probably, it appeared less 

 loud and distinct than that which I have since heard from the 

 English Snipe. I imagined then that the noise was made by 

 the quick and undulatory fanning of the wings ; but this would 

 not produce the shrillness of tone by which it is characterized, 

 as any one may satisfy himself by hearkening to the very dif- 

 ferent low buzz made by the wings of the Humming Bird. In 

 this instance, as well as in the former, all my sporting acquaint- 

 ance were familiar with this quivering call, but had never 

 decided upon its author. At the same time I observed, flying 

 high and rapid, a pair of these Snipes, probably instigated by 

 anger and jealousy, who then uttered a discordant quacking 

 sound, — something like the bleat they make when they have 

 descended to the ground, and which they accompany with an 

 attitude of peculiar stupidity, balancing the head forwards, and 

 the tail upwards and downwards, like the action of some autom- 

 aton toy, jerked and set in motion by a tight-dra^vn string. 



After incubation, which takes place rather early in the spring, 

 the humming is no longer heard, and the sprightly aerial evo- 

 lutions which appeared so indefatigable have now given way 

 to sedater attitudes and feebler tones. A few pairs no doubt 

 breed in the extensive and almost inaccessible morasses of 

 Cambridge ponds or lagoons -, and I have been informed that 

 they select a tuft of sedge for the foundation of the nest, which 

 is constructed with considerable art. The eggs, like those of 

 the European species, about four, are perhaps alike olivaceous 

 and spotted with brown. These birds probably scatter them- 

 selves over the interior of the continent to breed, nowhere 

 associating in great numbers ; nor are they at afl common in the 

 hyperboreal retreats chosen by so many of the other wading 

 birds. My friend Mr. Ives, of Salem, also informs me that a 

 few pairs of this species breed in that vicinity. 



The Snipe, almost nocturnal in its habits, conceals itself with 



