SNIPE-SHOOTING. 



By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL, Ph. D. 



THE Wilson's snipe is, in habits and appearance, very unlike 

 his near relative the woodcock. While the latter is a rather 

 heavily built, thick-set bird, — stocky, so to speak, — the snipe 

 i> much more slim and elegant in form. It is much smaller, too, 

 weighing only about four ounces. It very closely resembles the 

 jack snipe of Europe, — whence its usual appellation, " English," — 

 of which it is. according to the present views of ornithologists, only 

 a variety (GaUinago media Wilsoni). In length it almost equals 

 its cousin, already referred to, measuring from nine to eleven inches. 

 The crown of the head is black, with a median stripe of cream color, 

 the neck speckled with brown and gray, back variegated with black, 



ish brown, and tawny, the latter forming longitudinal stripes on 

 the inner long feathers of the shoulders. The tail is barred with 

 black, white, and chestnut brown, the sides are waved with dusky, 

 and the lower breast and belly are white. The bill is dark, and the 

 feet and legs are pale greenish. 



This species has a very wide distribution, and is found through- 

 out the whole continent. It only insists on moist feeding-grounds, 

 and so may be taken on the borders of streams and about the 

 ■loughs of the Western plains, around the edges of the alkaline 



> of the great central plateau of the Rocky Mountains, and in 

 the marshes and along the river bottoms of California, as well as in 

 the Hast and the Mississippi valley. 



It passes the winter in the Gulf States, where at that season it is 



inely* abundant, and begins its northward migration early in 



February. By the last of that month it has reached the marshes of 



