92 BAY-SNIPE SHOOTING. 
snipe, and beach-birds—names that might with justice 
be applied to the entire class, and which are so 
utterly confused, that persons from different sections 
of the country do not know what others are talking 
about. To make matters worse, the scientific gen- 
tlemen have stepped in, and after indulging in plenty 
of bad Latin, have added fresh English appellations, 
more unmeaning and less appropriate if possible than 
the common ones. ° : 
From this mass of incongruities the writer has 
endeavored, while preserving the best name, to select 
the one in general use, bearing in mind that names 
are mere substitutes, and not descriptive adjectives. 
The name frost-bird or frost-snipe—which belongs to 
entirely different creatures—is applicable to every 
bird that appears after a frost, and as nearly a hundred 
varieties are in this category, it is not distinctive ; 
the names meadow-snipe and beach-bird are ridicu- 
lous, put the latter, being applied to an unimportant 
class, is allowed to stand. The snipe that is herein 
called a krieker, or, as it may be spelled, creaker, 
which utters a hoarse, creaking note, is called in vari- 
ous places meadow-snipe—although most of the bay- 
birds haunt the meadows; fat-bird, whereas others 
are equally fat ; and short neck, in spite of the fact 
that its neck is longer than some species; while 
ornithologists call it pectoral sandpiper, probably 
because it has a breast. So also with the brant-bird, 
which is called on the coast of New Jersey horsefoot- 
snipe, because it feeds on the spawn ot the horse- 
foot; notwithstanding that the yellow-legs and seve- 
