AMERICAN SNIPE 33 
the large end. They measure more than an inch and 
a half in length by a little over an inch in breadth. 
When hatched, the young leave the nest at once. They 
are tiny little things covered with yellow and brown 
down. At this age the bill is short, and the young 
are unable to probe for food. Audubon says that at 
first they seem to feed on minute insects found on 
the surface of the mud, or amid grass and moss. It is 
possible that they do so, but probably no one knows 
very clearly just how they are nourished for the first 
few days of their lives; but as they grow older and the 
bill increases in length and strength, they begin to 
feed as do the old ones, and probe the mire. 
On their return flight the snipe make their appear- 
ance quite early and are often found on good ground 
in small numbers in late August or early September. 
If the weather has been very dry, so that the area 
soft enough to admit of their food being procured is 
contracted, snipe may often be found in considerable 
numbers on small wet places; but as the autumn flight 
takes place gradually and slowly, the birds moving on 
for short distances at a time, they are usually not found 
in any such numbers as sometimes occur in spring 
at the height of the migration, when some cold wave 
checks the onward advance. 
It is commonly believed that snipe spend all their 
time in wet and marshy places, and very likely they 
do so, when undisturbed. Once, however, many years 
ago, I visited a snipe ground near Vincennes, Ind., 
where the birds were astonishingly abundant. We 
