178 



MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



frost is out of the bogs, and returns again from the north in September, 

 Ungering until November. Snipe shooting is notoriously uncertain, bogs 

 which are alive with them one day being almost deserted the next, and 

 marshes which afford good shooting one season being almost worthless the 

 next year. 



Although the larger number pass farther north to breed, a few always 

 remain in middle Michigan for this purpose, and probably there are few 

 counties, even in the southern part of the state, in which Wilson's Snipe 

 does not nest occasionally. We have single records of nesting from 

 Jackson county (Watkins), Washtenaw county (Purdy, Covert); several 

 records from Kalamazoo county (Gibbs, Syke), and the vicinity of Lansing 

 (J. E. Nichols, W. B. Barrows). We have an egg in the Agricultural 



Fig. 51. Wilson's Snipe. 

 Photograph from mounted specimen. (Original.) 



College collection taken near Lansing by a friend of Mr. Jason E. Nichols, 

 whose dog, while hunting Snipe late in the spring, flushed a female from her 

 nest and broke all but one of the four eggs. During some summers Wilson's 

 Snipe are fairly common on Chandler's Marsh, Ingham county, during June 

 and July, and unquestionably nest there in some numbers. In -other 

 years not an individual is to be found there between June first and the 

 middle of August. 



During the late spring (undoubtedly while mating) the bird has a habit 

 of "bleating," which consists of rising to a considerable height and then 

 pitching downward obliquely toward the ground with great rapidity, making 

 a peculiar sound with the wings, and probably also at the same time with 

 the voice. The same individual will repeat this action half a dozen times 

 in succession, and often several birds may be within hearing at the same 



