32 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



in Hawaii, Bermuda and Great Britain. Cold affects 

 them little. My friend, Colonel W. D. Pickett, ob- 

 served snipe wintering in Wyoming, where the mercury 

 often went down to from twenty to thirty degrees 

 below zero. Here, in warm springs that were never 

 frozen, the birds remained and seemed to prosper all 

 through the winter. In the same way mallard ducks 

 winter in open water holes in the interior of Alaska. 



Usually the snipe reaches the middle and southern 

 New England States early in the month of April, 

 though this is a matter which depends largely on the 

 weather. Here they loiter for some time, the greater 

 part of them moving on farther to the North, where 

 they breed. Nests have been found in New York 

 State, and in the summer of 1908 I saw in August 

 on the banks of the Housatonic R'iver, in Connecticut, 

 snipe which I believe had been hatched there. 



Most of the snipe, however, go as far north as 

 Canada; and New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and suita- 

 ble localities just north of the boundary line between 

 the United States and the British possessions are 

 favorite breeding grounds. 



The nest is usually a hollow in the open marsh, where 

 the moss or grass has been pushed aside and bent 

 down to make a concavity which will hold the four 

 eggs. These, like those of many of this group, are 

 sharply pointed pyriform and always lie in the nest 

 with the four small ends together. They are grayish 

 green or olive in color, thickly dotted, blotched and 

 spotted with dark brown, the spots growing larger at 



