156 BIRD NAMES. [No. 44. 



Length ten and a half inches ; extent about seventeen to 

 eighteen inches. 



A freshly killed bird now in hand weighs a little over four 

 ounces, and its bill measures along the top a trifle less than two 

 and three quarter inches. 



WILSON'S SNIPE: AMERICAN SNIPE: COMMON SNIPE: SNIPE 

 (see No. 43): mentioned in Bartram's Travels through North 

 and South Carolina, etc., 1791, and in Barton's Fragments of the 

 Natural History of Pennsylvania, 1799, as MEADOW-SNIPE (see 

 No. 51) ; the latter author calling it also LITTLE WOODCOCK.* 



This favorite of our sportsmen and epicures is found through- 

 out the United States. Its name ENGLISH SNIPE (the bird was 

 regarded up to the time of Wilson as identical with European 

 species) and that of JACK SNIPE (see Nos. 46, 51) I have not 

 assigned to individual localities with any thoroughness, as both 

 these names are so widely and popularly applied to it. A few 

 scattering memoranda found among my notes are as follows : 

 Known as English Snipe in Maine at Bangor, Bath, and Pine 

 Point, in Massachusetts at Plymouth and Barnstable, in Con- 

 necticut at Stonington and Stony Creek, on Long Island at 

 Moriches and Seaford, and in Florida at Enterprise and Sanford. 

 Known as Jack Snipe at Portsmouth, N. H., in Massachusetts at 

 Kowley and Salem, in Illinois at Chicago and in Putnam County, 

 at Havre de Grace, Md., Washington, D. C., Alexandria, Ya., and 

 in Florida at Enterprise and Sanford (the two titles being about 

 equally popular in the last two localities). 



In New Jersey at Pleasantville (Atlantic Co.), Atlantic City, 

 and Somers Point, BOG SNIPE, and at Crisfield, Md., MARSH 

 SNIPE. 



* At least there is no doubt in my own mind that Wilson's Snipe was 

 the one referred to. Bartram mentions ll Scolopax Americana rufa, great red 

 woodcock," following it immediately with " S. minor arvensis, the meadow 

 snipe." Barton gives " Scolopax minor (G), little wood-cock (meadow-snipe)," 

 and again " Scolopax minor, Scolopax minor arvensis of Bartram, Pi-si-co-lis ? 

 of the Delaware Indians." In Zeisberger's Delaware Indian Spelling Book, 

 1776, we read, " Me me u& Woodcock," and " Pi si co Us a. Snipe." 



