^°189T'J PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 499 



The performance usually takes place in dull weather or in twilight. 

 After it is over, I have often induced him to repeat it by marking him 

 down and then springing him ; he generally rises, uttering a sort of 

 ''screep," zigzags for a few yards, circles round the horizon in one 

 or two sweeping gyrations, and either pitches down again to the 

 grass or continues t » ascend, and then repeats his song. 



The next day one of the snipe's notes seems not unlike the " tow, tow, 

 toic,^^ of a stray turkey, but in a higher key. 



About a week after arriving in its former haunts this well-known 

 species begins to manifest its presence by uttering the remarkable pair- 

 ing serenade for which several of the scolopacine birds are noted. 

 When prompted to this peculiar performance the snipe — the male only, 

 I suppose — rises suddenly from the bog where he has been feeding, and 

 where his usual note is a " squeak ! squeak!" and now, just after rising 

 on his long, swift wings, this "squeak" is generally repeated a num- 

 ber of times. Immediately after taking wing he circles all around the 

 marsh, then rises, silently, higher and higher, still circling, until, having 

 reached an elevation of several hundred feet, he gathers his strength 

 and goes whizzing across the sky, his tail spread to its utmost extent 

 and wings vibrating with great rapidity, while a loud, sharp boom, 

 repeated quickly twenty or thirty times, is heard as long as this career 

 is continued. While thus engaged the course of the bird has been 

 straight and slightly downward, and as soon as it is ended he re- 

 mounts and dashes across again with the same resounding iiccompani- 

 ment. This he will keep up for half an hour at a time. Thus having 

 expended his exuberant energy, he wheels lower and drops into the 

 slough to receive the congratulations of the only spectator whose atten- 

 tion was specially courted. 



This booming or whirring may be a product of the voice, or it may be 

 caused by the wings, which appear to vibrate simultaneously with the 

 production of the sounds, the quality of which is very nearly the same 

 as that of the boom of the night hawk. 



The favorite haunts of this bird are the open grassy sloughs or bogs 

 which intersect the country. Here it finds in abundance the smaller 

 insects which constitute its food, and here it makes its nest and rears its 

 young. The position of the only nest of this species that I found was 

 in a slightly-elevated tussock or sod in the middle of a wide muskeg. 

 The nest consisted of a slight hollow, with a few straws for lining, and 

 was raised only about 3 inches above the water. This was in the 

 third week of July, and by the 27th of the month the four young ones 

 were hatched and immediately left the nest, to lead a roving life with 

 their mother among the grassy bottoms and the muskegs, rich with an 

 infinitude of insect life. 



