WILSON'S SNIPE 133 



on these coasts comes after one or two sharp 

 frosts have closed their free lunch in the 

 swamps of the interior, driving the birds from 

 their summer ranges and reminding them that 

 it is time to look for pleasanter quarters fur- 

 ther south. They form no large flocks, coming 

 along in ''wisps" of two or three, mostly at 

 night, but, I think, not infrequently by day. 

 Authorities are divided as to this bird's habit 

 of migration, some saying that the Snipe al- 

 ways migrates by night, but from my own ob- 

 servation I am satisfied that he travels in the 

 daylight also. I remember seeing a flock of 

 seven (the largest number that I ever saw 

 traveling together) arrive in the marsh in mid- 

 afternoon, and my companion and I had the 

 pleasure of making it our own ''personally 

 conducted excursion" before it left. What 

 seems most remarkable to us was the fact that 

 when we flushed them, after making a few cir- 

 cles in the air, they would come back to our 

 whistles just as a bunch of plover might have 

 done. This is almost the only occasion on 

 which I have seen them pay any attention to a 

 call, and presume that then the little family 

 did not want to be separated — nor did we our- 



