246 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



several weeks in New Jersey and Delaware, and get very fat while 

 feeding on the marshes. Although they most frequently appear 

 very suddenly and in large numbers in certain localities, they are 

 not gregarious, but perform their migrations singly, or in very 

 small wisps, seldom exceeding four or five. 



The flight of the snipe, even when going to a considerable 

 distance, is very irregular and devious; they must, however, fly 

 with rapidity, as they spread themselves over so wide an extent of 

 country in so short a space of time. 



Snipes are, without doubt, very fickle and uncertain in their 

 movements, resorting in great abundance to certain spots on one 

 day, and entirely abandoning them on the following, without any 

 apparent cause, save perhaps a trifling change in the wind or 

 weather. They seem to possess a restless spirit, which impels 

 them to seek on one day the high and open grounds, and on the 

 next the low and sheltered marshes. The presence of a slight and 

 almost imperceptible frost, or the springing up of a northeasterly 

 wind during the night, influences the wanderings of these birds at 

 early dawn ; and their sudden appearance at or absence from cer- 

 tain localities is often a source of astonishment to the shooter, who, 

 luxuriating on his downy couch, dreams of the morrow's sport, 

 little heeding the insidious mutation in the elements that drives 

 the sensitive snipe from the favored feeding-grounds of the pre- 

 vious day, and thus frustrates all his bright anticipations. 



The snipe family in general has very justly been pronounced the 

 most meteorological of all birds, for their appreciation of atmo- 

 spheric changes is certainly very remarkable, and far beyond 

 that of any other of the feathered tribe. Their perception of cold 

 or moisture must be exquisitely nice, far beyond any thing which 

 we can form an idea of, as their abrupt shiftings from place to place 

 are governed, we presume, in many instances, by the variations in 

 temperature which are scarcely discernible to the sportsman. For 

 we cannot attribute these sudden rovings on their part to any 

 other cause than those alterations in the atmosphere, unless we 

 believe that they are solely the result of a capricious disposition, 



