AMERICAN SNIPE. 179 



like the quantity of snipe that there used to be a 'few 

 years ago. 



Immediately on the break up of winter they make 

 their reappearance from the south, that is to say, about the 

 end of March or early in April in the Western Province, 

 and about the beginning of May in the Eastern. In many 

 parts of the Niagara district I have at this time seen them 

 so numerous as to rise in a succession of wisps, in the 

 marshes and low-lying grounds, while scattered birds were 

 to be found in every grassy " swale" or hollow of the fields. 



Saturated with the rapid melting of several months' 

 accumulated snow, the country literally steams under 

 the increasingly powerful rays of the northward journey- 

 ing sun, and the ground is so soft and deep that mere 

 walking is of itself severe labour, without the accompany- 

 ing toil which snipe shooting entails. Sinking ankle deep 

 in the warm mud at each step, and perspiring at every 

 pore, the shooter might fancy himself pursuing his sport 

 in the rice fields of India, were it not for the toil, so 

 distinctively Canadian, which he has to. encounter in 

 clambering over the ever-recurring "snake-fences," eight 

 or ten feet in height : an exercise which for fatigue sur- 

 passes anything I have met with in the East. 



The Spotted Sandpiper* is common in summer on the 



* Tringoides macularius. 



N2 



