The Wizard, of tbe Wetlands 43 



wire. Another bird was seen to pitch on a small 

 stack which was surrounded by water, and yet 

 another upon the roof of an old outhouse. There 

 was no mistake in either case, for I flushed and 

 killed the bird on the stack and had a close view of 

 the other before it left the roof. 



The names by which the snipe is known in various 

 localities are rather numerous and some of them 

 quite curious. While the correct one is Wilson's 

 snipe, we find " American snipe," " common snipe," 

 " snipe," " meadow snipe," " little wood-snipe," 

 " English snipe," " bog snipe," " marsh snipe," " Jack 

 snipe," " alewife bird," " shad spirit," " shad-bird," and 

 " gutter snipe." It is " a snipe or snite, a bird lesse 

 than a woodcocke," in Baret's "Alveary," 1580; and in 

 Drayton's "Owl," 1604, occurs, "the witless woodcock 

 and his neighbor snite." Other sometime crumbled 

 old parties speak of " simpes " and " simps," and I 

 .sincerely trust their shooting was a lot above the 

 average of their spelling. The name "Jack snipe," 

 so persistently used by some writers who ought to 

 know better, is misleading, as it rightly belongs to 

 a smaller bird which so far as may be learned from 

 authentic records has been taken only upon the 

 other side of the Herring Pond. One excellent 

 authority refers to it as " a twiddling jack " and 

 unworthy of the notice of sportsmen. 



The flight of the snipe is swift, vigorous, and 

 usually for the first few yards erratic. The bird 

 gets under way smartly and as a usual thing goes 

 boring up-wind in a style rather suggestive of a 

 feathered corkscrew. A series of electrical zigzags 

 gets him to top speed, whereupon his progress stead- 



