74 BAY-SNIPE SHOOTING. 
During the northward flight in May, there is often 
good sport, but the time is more uncertain than in 
August; nor do the birds, which are old and wary, 
stool quite so well as on their return. In the spring 
they pursue the same course as in the autumnal 
flight ; which, although it is the most direct line, and 
follows the principal expanse of salt meadow, neces- 
sitates considerable journeys far out at sea. But it 
is doubtless the fact that these birds, in consequence 
of their stretch and power of wing, could sustain an 
unbroken flight from north to south, and accomplish 
the distance in a wonderfully short space of time. 
Unabated speed of one hundred miles an hour is 
equivalent to twenty-four hundred miles in a day, 
and portions of the flock may not pause between 
Labrador and the swamps of Florida. 
When the wind is strong and continuous from the 
westward, it is supposed that they pass far out to 
sea ; and during these seasons there will be no flight 
of birds either at Long Island or on the Jersey coast. 
At such periods sportsmen often conclude that the 
entire race has been destroyed, till the easterly winds 
and soaking rains of the following year, bring them 
back more numerous than ever. As they must 
migrate, and are not to be found anywhere on the 
land, it is clear that they must have the power of 
completing their journey in one unbroken flight. 
The principal varieties are the sickle-bill, jack-cur- 
lew, the marlin and ring-tailed marlin, the willet, the 
black-breast or bull-head, and golden plovers, the 
yelper, yellow-legs, robin-snipe, dowitchers, brant- 
