358 GAME BIBDS OF CALIFORNIA 



sidered onr most important species of shore bird. Its flesh is of excel- 

 lent flavor, due, perhaps, to the fact that it lives exclusively about 

 clean fresh water. To the hunter it is the game bird par excellence. 

 To the farmer it is beneficial by reason of its food habits. 



All available accounts go to show that the Wilson Snipe has 

 decreased decidedly in numbers. This is due to several causes : re- 

 striction of feeding grounds, encroachments of civilization in other 

 ways, and excessive shooting without bag limit for a long period. In 

 the east, in former years. Snipe were not protected at all; shooting 

 continued through the spring and even well into the nesting season. 

 Spring shooting in this state has probably been responsible for mucli 

 of their decrease on the whole Pacific Coast. Statistics from a gun- 

 club in Monterey County show the following number of Snipe to have 

 been taken during the seasons specified: In 1905-06, 117; 1910-11, 

 189 ; 1911-12, 95 ; and in 1912-13, 24. These figures show an average 

 decrease not to be accounted for even by irregularity of occurrence 

 from year to year. 



The five-year closed season established by the Federal government 

 in 1913 for many of our shore birds should have been extended to the 

 Wilson Snipe. Such action is necessary if this admirable bird is to 

 continue as a game species. After the end of a closed season of a few 

 years, adequate restrictions could be provided so that it would con- 

 tinue to exist in fair numbers throughout the state and be a staple 

 feature of the game bag. 



Long-billed Dow^itcher 



Ma^rorhamphus griseus scolopacfiis (Say) 



Other names — Eed-breasted Snipe (in summer); Jaek Snipe; Gray Snipe 

 (in winter); Scolopax grisea; Scolopax novehoracensis ; Macrorhamplnifi scoJo- 

 paceus; Macrorhamphus griseus. 



Description — Adults, both sexes, in late spring and summer: Top of head and 

 hind neck streaked brownish black and light cinnamon; stripe from upper 

 mandible to above eye, dull whitish; sides of head, mixed white and tawny, 

 flecked with brownish black; chin dull white often finely flecked with dusky; 

 iris "reddish-hazel"; bill "dark olive" (Audubon, 1843, VI, p. 13); feathers 

 of back and scapulars black, narrowly margined with pale cinnamon and 

 narrowly tipped with pale gray or white, some with irregular or broken bars 

 of tawny; rump white becoming posteriorly like upper tail coverts, the latter 

 being marked with spots and bars of white and blackish brown; tail feathers 

 ashy brown, irregularly barred with white, and sometimes with pale tawny; 

 outer surface of closed wing brownish gray, lightest on middle coverts; coverts 

 and secondaries narrowly margined with white, secondaries more broadly tipped 

 with white; primaries dark brown, quill of outermost one white; under lining 

 of wing, and axillars, barred white and blackish brown; under surface of flight 

 feathers dusky, more or less finely marbled with whitish on inner webs; under 



