WILSON'S SNIPE. 179 



seems to know you are coming close enough to 

 compel him to rise, and seems to take pleasure in 

 giving you an opportunity to shoot at him. 

 Then he lies just close enough to tempt you, 

 expecting to escape by superior quickness and 

 twisting flight. 



As the first game of spring in many places, this 

 bird fills an aching void in many a breast. Do 

 you remember the day the frost first relaxed its 

 grip upon the meadow ? Loud howled the wind 

 of March, and scowled the leaden sky, yet you 

 plunged through mud and jumped the foaming 

 ditch as lightly as on a June morning. Not yet 

 had the frog broken the silence left in winter's 

 wake ; no liquid note around the old box in the 

 garden where the blue-bird makes his yearly 

 home ; no sound from the purple grackles in the 

 bunch of pines upon the hill ; no dots upon the 

 sky where the wild duck should be hastening 

 home from the South. Yet here you tramp 

 through a remnant of snow, and there you twist 

 your feet loose from devouring mud, looking 

 happy and expectant. And the dog dashes 

 through cold water and flounders through half- 

 frozen slush, while the chilly wind whistles over 



