246 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



Every where, however, to the northward and west- 

 ward, or northward and eastward of the Carolinas, he is, 

 probably, more or less entirely an occasional spring and 

 autumnal visitor ; coming the earlier in spring, and re- 

 turning the later in autumn, the farther south and west 

 the land lies, until he becomes a mere winter resident, 

 departing so soon as the spring sunshine, becoming too 

 warm, gives token of the approaching breeding season, and 

 remaining absent until the freezing of his feeding places drive 

 him southward still, whither he finds waters which are never 

 congealed, morasses never impervious to his sensitive and 

 busy bill. 



The seasons of the appearance of snipe in the mead- 

 ows and salt marshes, where the spring and tide waters 

 meet, which are for the most part the scenes of their first 

 appearance, are to be recognized by the simultaneous 

 appearance of the blue-birds in the vicinity of buildings, 

 of the shad in the river estuaries, by the croaking of the 

 awakened frogs in the pools and quagmires, and by the 

 bursting of the willow buds ; all of which indications of 

 the spring occur nearly at the same moment in every 

 various locality from the banks of the Potomac to those 

 of the St. Lawrence. 



The frost must be entirely out of the ground, especial- 

 ly in the wet, cold lowlands and meadow-swamps, which 

 are the favorite feeding grounds of this bird, and the 

 spring grass should have come up tender, succulent, and 

 green ; the close of winter should have been distinguished 

 by the raw north-eastern equinoctial gale, an^l this should 

 have been succeeded by warm, genial weather, with an 



