tHB IJIIPB. 187 



Aubde by the wings of the humming bird. In this instance, 

 •8 well as in the former, all my sporting acqu^tance were 

 fctniliftr with this quivering call, but had never decided 

 «pon its author. 



At the same time, probably instigated by anger and 

 jealousy, I observed flying high and rapid, a pair of these 

 Snipes, who then uttered a discordant quacking sound; 

 something like the bleat they make when they have de- 

 scended 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 automaton toy, jerked and set in motion by a tight- 

 drawn string. 



After incubation, which takes place rather early in the 

 spring, the humming is no longer heard, and the sprightly 

 aerial evolutions 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 ina<;cessi- 

 ble morasses of Cambridge ponds or lagoons ; and I hav» 

 been informed, that they select a tuft of sedge for the foun- 

 dation of the nest, which is constructed with considerable 

 art; the eggs, like those of the European species, about four, 

 aie perhaps alike olivaceous and spotted with brown. 



They probably scatter themselves over the interior of the 

 continent to breed, nowhere associating in great numbers ; 

 nor are they at all common in tlie hyperboreal retreati 

 ibosen by so many of the other wading birds. My Iriendi 



