232 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



cessful in making a heavy bag of snipe, there is a rule 

 which may be beneficial to the tyro to remember, viz., 

 always to hunt down wind, or as much so as possible, 

 provided always that dogs are not used. The stronger 

 the breeze, the more necessity for doing so ; the reason 

 being, that invariably snipe fly against the wind, and 

 being flushed by your advancing on them from wind- 

 ward, the birds will wheel round to the right or left, 

 and present an easy cross shot, in their determination 

 to pursue the desired direction. 



The migration of this snipe, as well as of the Ame- 

 rican woodcock, is peculiar ; all appear to act indepen- 

 dently of the other. Dozens may be seen to pass or 

 light near you in the space of a few minutes, yet each 

 bird is alone. Many an evening, after sunset, have I 

 watched their coming, yet never saw two or more to- 

 gether. These journeys take place before sunrise 

 and after sunset. This scattered mode of travelling, 

 and the hour at which it takes place, are doubtless 

 the reasons that none but close observers of 

 nature witness their arrival. By the end of May 

 the migration of this snipe has ceased, and their 

 summer quarters are reached, which are, as pre- 

 viously stated, principally north of the Great Lakes 

 and the St. Lawrence ; although not a few spend 

 the summer in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and 

 Maine. Early in June they commence laying their 

 eggs, four in number, in a nest of the most primitive 

 construction, it being simply an indentation in some 

 trifling excrescence of the surface. The eggs, which 

 are of a yellowish brown colour, blotched with dark 

 markings, taper very much towards the small end ; 

 they are always placed in the nest with the larger end 



