SNIPE SHOOTING. 41 



rust color, spotted with black; tail rounded, 

 deep black, ending in a bar of bright ferrugi- 

 nous, crossed with narrow, waving lines of 

 black, and tipped with whitish; belly, pure 

 white ; sides, barred with dusky ; legs and feet, 

 a very pale ashy green; sometimes the whole 

 thighs and sides of the vent are tarred with 

 dusky and white. The female is more obscure 

 in her colors ; the white on the belly being less 

 pure, and the black on the back not so deep." 



The winter of 183- had been very severe in 

 the middle and eastern states. 



In Pennsylvania it was marked by high winds, 

 heavy falls of snow, and unusually low depres- 

 sions of the mercury. 



Deer, floundering in the deep drifts, were 

 killed in great numbers by the hunters of the 

 upper districts, and in the counties adjoining 

 Philadelphia the smaller varieties of game nearly 

 all perished. Grouse and hares were starved 

 out in the hills, or fell an easy prey to the foxes; 

 partridges came and fed from the threshing- 

 floors ; larks were found dead in the hay -ricks ; 

 crows alit upon the offals in the barnyard ; and 

 it became necessary to keep the poultry housed, 

 and their crops well filled, to save them from 

 the hawks, or from freezing to death on their 

 roosts. 



