80 TOTANUS SEMIPALMATUS. 



GENUS IA. TOTANUS, BECHSTEIN. 



226. TOTANUS SEltlPALXATUS, TEMMINL'K. 



MCOLOPAX SEMIPALMATA, WILSOK SEMIPALMATED SMl'E. 



WILSON, PLATE LVI. FIG. III. 



THIS is one of the most noisy and noted birds that 

 inhabit our salt marshes in summer. Its common name 

 is the willet, by which appellation it is universally 

 known along the shores of New York, New Jersey, 

 Delaware, and Maryland, in all of which places it 

 breeds in great numbers. 



The willet is peculiar to America. It arrives from 

 the south on the shores of the Middle States about 

 the 20th of April, or beginning of May; and from that 

 time to the last of July, its loud and shrill reiterations 

 of pill-will-willet, pill-witt-willet, resound, almost in- 

 cessantly, along the marshes, and may be distinctly 

 heard at the distance of more than half a mile. About 

 the 20th of May, the willets generally begin to lay. * 

 Their nests are built on the ground, among the grass 

 of the salt marshes, pretty well towards the land, or 

 cultivated fields, and are composed of wet rushes and 

 coarse grass, forming a slight hollow or cavity in a 

 tussock. This nest is gradually increased during the 

 period of laying and sitting, to the height of five or six 

 inches. The eggs are usually four in number, very 

 thick at the great end, and tapering to a narrower 

 point at the other than those of the common hen ; they 

 measure two inches and one eighth in length, by one 

 and a half in their greatest breadth, and are of a dark 

 dingy olive, largely blotched with blackish brown, 

 particularly at the great end. In some, the ground 

 colour has a tinge of green ; in others, of bluish. They 

 are excellent eating, as I have often experienced when 

 obliged to dine on them in my hunting excursions 



* From some unknown cause, the height of laying of these birds 

 is said to be full two weeks later than it was twenty years ago. 



