Species V. SCOLOPAX SEMIPALMATA* 



SEMIPALMATED SNIPE. 



[Plate LVI. Fig. 3.] 

 Arct. Zool. p. 469, No. SSO.f 



This is one of the most noisy and noted birds that inhabit our salt 

 marshes in summer. Its common name is the Willet, by which appella- 

 tion it is universally known along the shores of New York, New Jersey, 

 Delaware and Maryland, in all of which places it breeds in great 

 numbers. 



The Willet is peculiar to America. It arrives from the south, on the 

 shores of the Middle States, about the twentieth of April, or beginning 

 of May ; and from that time to the last of July, its loud and shrill re- 

 iterations of Pill-tvill-willet, Pill-ivill-willet, resound, almost incessantly, 

 along the marshes ; and may be distinctly heard at the distance of more 

 than half a mile. About the twentieth of May the Willets generally 

 begin to lay.| Their nests are built on the ground, among the grass of 

 the salt marshes, pretty well towards the land, or cultivated fields, and 

 are composed of wet rushes and coarse grass, forming a slight hollow or 

 cavity in a tussock. This nest is gradually increased during the period 

 of laying and sitting, to the height of five or six inches. The eggs are 

 usually four in number, very thick at the great end, and tapering to a 

 narroAver point at the other than those of the common hen ; they mea- 

 sure two inches and one-eighth in length, by one and a half in their 

 greatest breadth^ and are of a dark dingy olive, largely blotched with 

 blackish brown, particularly at the great end. In some the ground color 

 has a tinge of green ; in others of bluish. They are excellent eating, 

 as I have often experienced when obliged to dine on them in my hunting 

 excursions through the salt marshes. The young are covered with a 

 gray colored down ; run ofi" soon after they leave the shell ; and are led 

 and assisted in their search of food by the mother ; while the male keeps 

 a continual watch around for their safety. 



The anxiety and afi'ection manifested by these birds for their eggs and 



* This and the five following species belong to the genus Totanus of Bechstein. 



t Scolopax semipalmati, Lath. Sijn. in., p. 152., No. 22. — Id. Ind. Orn. p. 722, 

 No. 27.— Gmel. Syst. i., p. 659, No. 331. 



X From some unknown cause, the height of laying of these birds is said to be full 

 two weeks later than it was twenty years ago. 



(333) 



