SNIPES AND SANDPIPERS 245 



Washington, rather common from Feb. to Nov.; a few winter. Long 

 Island, rare S. R. Apl.-Nov., a few winter. Ossining, common S. R., Feb. 

 19-Dec. 2. Cambridge, rare S. R., uncommon T. V., Mch. 15-Nov. 10. 

 N. Ohio, tolerably common, S. R., Mch. 10-Oct. 20. Glen Ellyn, not com- 

 mon S. R., May 17 (doubtless earlier) to Sept. 18. SE. Minn., Apl. 5-Oct. 18. 



Nest, of a few dry leaves, on the ground in the woods. Eggs, 4, buffy, 

 distinctly and obscurely spotted with shades of rufous, 1*60 x T23. Date, 

 ( aper's Is., S. C., Feb. 13; Lower Cedar Point, Md., Feb. 25; Cambridge, 

 Apl. 15; Wheatland, Ind., Mch. 4; Petersburg, Mich., Apl. 16. 



During the spring and early summer this Owl among Snipe haunts 

 low, wooded bottom-lands; in August, while molting, it resorts to corn- 

 fields near woods, and in the fall migrating birds frequent wooded 

 uplands. But at all times it requires a soft, moist earth in which it may 

 easily probe with its long bill for its fare of earthworms. The holes 

 it makes are known as 'borings.' They are generally found in little 

 groups, and are, of course, certain evidence of the presence of Wood- 

 cock. Gurdon Trumbull discovered that the Woodcock can move the 

 tip of its upper mandible independently of the lower one, and this 

 organ is made to act as a finger to assist the bird in drawing its food 

 from the ground. (Forest and Stream, XXXV, 1890, 412.) 



The flight of the Woodcock is sometimes accompanied by a high, 

 whistling sound produced by its narrow, stiffened primaries in beating 

 the air. When flushed near its nest or young, the parent bird gen- 

 erally feigns lameness or a broken wing, and leads the intruder some 

 distance from its treasures before taking wing. 



The cloak of night always lends a certain mystery to the doings of 

 nocturnal birds, and more often than not their habits justify our unusual 

 interest in them. Few of the mating evolutions of our birds are more 

 remarkable than the sky dance of the Woodcock. He begins on the 

 ground with a formal, periodic peent, peent, an incongruous preparation 

 for the wild rush that follows. It is repeated several times before he 

 springs from the ground, and on whistling wings sweeps out on the first 

 loop of a spiral which may take him three hundred feet from the ground. 

 Faster and faster he goes, louder and shriller sounds his wing-song; 

 then, after a moment's pause, with darting, headlong flight, he pitches 

 in zigzags to the earth, uttering as he falls a clear, twittering whistle. 

 He generally returns to near the place from which he arose, and the 

 peent is at once resumed as a preliminary to another round in the sky. 

 In the gray of early morning this strange performance is repeated. 



1894. BREWSTER, W., Auk, XI, 291-298 (song). 



The EUROPEAN WOODCOCK (227. Scolopax rusticola) bears a general re- 

 semblance to our Woodcock, but is much larger; the underparts are barred 

 with black, the wings are barred with rufous, and the outer primaries are not 

 emarginate. It is of accidental occurrence in eastern North America. 



230. Gallinago delicata (Ord). WILSON'S SNIPE. Ads. Upperparts 

 black, barred, bordered, and mottled with different shades of cream-buff; 

 wings fuscous; outer edge of outer primary and tips of greater coverts white; 

 throat white; neck and breast ochraceous-buff, indistinctly streaked with 

 blackish; belly white, sides barred with black; under tail-coverts buffy, 



