170 BRITISH BIRDS. 



it feeds. Like the Sandpipers it occasionally wades through the little 

 pools or streamlets on the mud, and when flushed the whole flock rise 

 simultaneously and settle again in the same manner. Its flight is very 

 quick and powerful, but is without the erratic twistings of the Common 

 Snipe. The bird rarely prolongs it for any distance, usually settling again 

 in the first convenient spot. It is very fond of consorting with other 

 Waders. Sometimes great numbers of these birds frequent the margins of 

 freshwater ponds in the wet season, to which situations they are often 

 lured by the whistle of the sportsman as they pass high in air overhead. 



The food of the Red-breasted Snipe is composed almost exclusively of 

 worms and insects, for which it probes with its long beak in the mud. 

 Specimens of this bird obtained by Richardson had their crops filled with 

 leeches and the remains of beetles. It is also said to eat small seeds, and 

 may possibly devour some of the small ground-fruits which grow so pro- 

 fusely in the Arctic regions. The note of this bird is described as a 

 peculiar whistle, easily imitated by sportsmen ; and Dr. Coues says that its 

 alarm-note is a soft weet, uttered just before taking wing. He also states 

 that, when wading, if it should chance to get out of its depth, it swims 

 without difficulty, sitting very lightly on the water, and accompanying the 

 motion of its feet by a bobbing action of the head. 



The breeding-grounds of the Red-breasted Snipe are in the marshes of 

 the Arctic regions, even those close to the sea. The eggs and nest of this 

 bird were practically unknown until MacFarlane discovered them in the 

 neighbourhood of Fort Anderson. The nests he obtained were taken 

 between the 21st of June and the 1st of July, and were built amongst the 

 vegetation on the marshy borders of small lakes. They were very slight 

 a mere depression in the mossy ground into which a few dead leaves were 

 scraped as a lining. From one of the nests the female was disturbed, 

 when she flew some height into the air with a shrill long-continued note 

 of alarm, and after a few minutes was seen to return in a perpendicular 

 direction to her charge. Mr. Dall obtained the eggs of this bird in 

 Alaska. He found a nest on the 3rd of June, which was merely a little 

 hollow in the ground in a grass hummock in a marshy place, with scarcely 

 any lining. On the 6th of June he took the eggs and captured the parent, 

 which, when flushed from her eggs, scurried off very quickly, and was 

 very difficult to shoot as she dashed amongst the hummocks of grass. 



The eggs of the Red-breasted Snipe are four in number, and vary in 

 ground-colour from pale buffish brown to pale greenish brown, spotted 

 and blotched with dark reddish brown, and with well-marked pale greyish- 

 brown underlying spots. Most of the blotches and spots are on the large 

 end of the egg, many of them being confluent. A few streaks of very 

 dark blackish brown are sometimes seen over the ordinary blotches, and 

 the latter occasionally take an oblique direction. They are pyriform in 



