94 AMEKICAN GAME. 



duction, but is rendered scarcer in thickly settled dis- 

 tricts, nigh to large towns, by incessant harrassing, which 

 drives it to remoter and securer feeding-grounds. 



I do not mean by fliis, however, to assert that the abo- 

 lition of spring snipe-shooting would not be an advan- 

 tage on the contrary, I am convinced that it would ; 

 although well assured that no such measure can be hoped 

 at the hands of our legislators ; for, as the snipe ordina- 

 rily lays four eggs, the destruction of each one of the 

 breeders on their way northward, of course diminishes 

 the stock of the coming season by five birds. , 



So much for the times and places of the snipe's migra- 

 tions. Of his appearance or characteristics so well is 

 he known it is almost useless to speak ; it may, how- 

 ever, be well to observe that although commonly termed 

 the ENGLISH SNIPE, our bird is a thorough native Ameri- 

 can^ differing from the bird of Europe in being about 

 one inch smaller every way, and in having two more 

 feathers, sixteen instead of fourteen, in the tail. In 

 other minute, but still permanent, and therefore charac- 

 teristic distinctions, it differs from the Asiatic and An- 

 tarctic snipes ; although in their rapid, zigzag flight and 

 shrill squeak when flushed ; in their irregular soaring 

 through the air in gloomy w r eather ; in their perpendic- 

 ular towering and plumb descent, their drumming with 

 the wing-feathers, and bleating with the voice, during 

 the breeding-season, all the species or varieties so closely 

 resemble each other, that they are far more easily con- 



