THE AMERICAN SNIPE. 91 



in such seasons, more or less, lie woos x his mate, nidifi- 

 cates and rears his young among us, from the Karitan 

 and the Passaic northward and eastward to the Great 

 Lakes, and throughout Michigan, Wisconsin, probably, 

 and Canada West, up far into the Arctic Circles. 



Still, those which breed with us in the United States, 

 and even in the Canadas, are but as drops of water to 4 an 

 ocean, to those which rush on the untiring pinions moved 

 by amatory instinct to the far breeding grounds of Lab- 

 rador, Symsonia, and Boothia Felix, whither it is sv/p- 

 posed they resort to rear their young in hyperborean soli- 

 tude, thence to reissue, in the summer and the earlier 

 autumn, and re-populate our midland meadows. 



In the neighborhood of Amherstberg, Canada West, 

 they appear very early ; often in February of mild sea- 

 sons, always in March ; and there may breed, and remain 

 until banished by severe cold. I shot one there myself 

 last autumn, the last bird of the season, very late in To- 

 vember, I believe on the 28th or 29th ; and with the 

 plover, the Hudsonian godwit, and the Esquimaux 

 curlew, they were seen there this spring in the first days 

 of March. 



Around Quebec, I have shot English snipe on the up- 

 lands, in fallow fields and rushy pastures for the grass 

 in the morasses does not begin to shoot in those far north- 

 ern latitudes, so as to afford them shelter, until much 

 later in the year in the end of April and the beginning 

 of May ; but they arrive there only by small scattered 



