Wilson's snipe. 175 



assiduity in the long grass, sedge, and rushes of its enswamped 

 and boggy retreat. Aware of danger from the approach of the 

 sportsman, it springs at a distance with great rapidity, uttering 

 usually a feeble squeak ; and making several inflections before 

 it takes a direct course, it becomes very difficult to shoot, and 

 is more easily caught with a snare or springe similar to that 

 which is set for Woodcocks. Being deservedly in high repute 

 as an exquisite flavored game, great pains are taken to obtain 

 Snipes. In the spring season on their first arrival they are 

 lean ; but in the autumn, assembled towards the coast from all 

 parts of the interior, breeding even to the banks of the Missis- 

 sippi, they are now fat and abundant, and, accompanied by 

 their young, are at this time met with in all the low grounds 

 and enswamped marshes along the whole range of the At- 

 lantic ; but ever shy and dexterous, they are only game for the 

 most active and eager sportsmen. When on the wing they 

 may, like many other birds of this family, be decoyed and 

 attracted by the imitation of their voice. They are, like the 

 European Snipe, which migrates to winter in England, by no 

 means averse to cold weather, so long as the ground is not 

 severely frozen in such a manner as to exclude their feeding ; 

 so that even in Massachusetts they are found occasionally down 

 to the middle of December. They are nowhere properly gre- 

 garious, but only accidentally associate where their food hap- 

 pens to be abundant. For this purpose they are perpetually 

 nibbling and boring the black, marshy soil, from which they 

 sometimes seem to collect merely the root-fibres which it hap- 

 pens to contain, though their usual and more substantial fare 

 consists of worms, leeches, and some long-legged aquatic in- 

 sects ; the Snipe of Europe also seizes upon the smaller species 

 of ScarabcBtis. Their food, no doubt, is mixed with the black 

 and slimy earth they raise while boring for roots and worms, 

 and which in place of gravel, or other hard substances, ap- 

 pears to be the usual succedaneum they employ to assist their 

 digestion and distend the stomach. 



The habits of this bird are well known to every sportsman in 

 North America, for it ranges throughout the continent, and is 



