Shore-bird Shooting 349 



Eggs — Four in number ; color, rufous drab blotched with dark 

 brown; measure 1.60 by r.io inches. 



Habitat — Breeds in Labrador, northwest possibly to Fort Anderson 

 and probably north to Greenland, and is said to have bred south 

 to Lake Superior and in Newfoundland. Winters from Florida, 

 Louisiana, and the West Indies to Brazil. In migrations for- 

 merly abundant, now tolerably common, on the Atlantic Coast 

 of the United States. Occurs in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, 

 and has been reported from Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon, and Lower 

 California, and is said to be a non-breeding resident in Louisiana. 

 Of occasional occurrence in Great Britain, France, Alaska, and 

 Bermuda. 



The common names for this bird along the 

 Atlantic Coast are dowitch, or dowitcher, brown- 

 back, and grayback. It is distinctly an eastern 

 bird, but is often confounded with the long-billed 

 dowitcher, the western variety. The red-breasted 

 snipe early reaches the coast from its haunts in 

 the North. By the last week in July the first 

 birds appear, and it is most abundant from this 

 time until early in August. Gentle and unsus- 

 pecting, the dowitcher has paid the penalty of a 

 confiding nature, and the flocks at the present 

 time along the favorite flats and marshes of our 

 eastern coast are few and far between. This bird 

 recalls a morning several years ago in late July. 

 It was on Shinnecock Bay, and we left for the 

 one good point long before dawn ; the path lay 

 just inside the dunes, and in the quiet of early 

 morning the mosquitoes seemed in clouds, with- 

 out a breath of air to stir them. Four miles of 



