WILSON'S SNIPE. 189 



For abundance of birds with comparative ease 

 in hunting, the boggy meadows of California are 

 now hard to excel. The best shooting, too, is in 

 midwinter, when there is little to hunt in the 

 Eastern States. Much of the ground, especially 

 in the South, is hard enough to drive over with 

 a wagon and walk over with no difficulty, while 

 it is still wet enough to furnish abundant food 

 for this hungry little tramp. Sometimes on the 

 warm still days of midwinter it is one continual 

 Scaipe, scaipe, scaipc, on such ground, and a 

 dozen or more of the little gray cruisers are in 

 the air at once. Here one spins away on a line 

 so straight and long that he seems bound for 

 yonder mountain whose snowy top rises in hoary 

 majesty above long lines of fleecy cloud that 

 along its breast look dark by the contrast. 

 Another, after starting for several different quar- 

 ters of the universe in as many seconds, concludes 

 the climate right here is good enough, and whirls 

 around backward and pitches into the edge of 

 the tall marsh-grass beside the slope where the 

 bluebells are blowing. Another starts off as 

 though he would cross the sea that lies afar in 

 undimpled blue beneath the soft bright sky; 



