Southward as soon as the young are able to fly. 

 Single birds are to be met with in summer or at 

 almost any season, but they are male birds that for 

 some reason have not mated, and have remained in 

 the warm Southland. 



The flight of the snipe genus is easy and rapid, 

 and their movements on land are dignified and grace- 

 ful. If necessary they are good swimmers, and some 

 species are proficient at diving. Their chief resorts 

 are the salt marshes along the seacoasts, and at low 

 tide they are fond of wading on the mud-flats in 

 pursuit of their food. They live on larvae and 

 insects. They are, as a family, of a very sociable 

 disposition; and this fact, added to their habit of 

 flying in compact flocks, is the chief reason for their 

 rapid decrease in numbers. A flock of snipe after 

 being shot at, sometimes return and give the gunner 

 another chance, and particularly so if some of them 

 have been wounded by the hunter, and utter their 

 plciintive whistle. 



The smaller varieties often congregate in 

 immense flocks, and as many as twenty or more 

 birds have been killed with a single barrel, by pot 

 hunters. One of the chief pleasures of beach-bird 

 shooting is the endless varieties of snipe that come 

 to the hunter's stool. Each of the species has a 

 distinctive whistle or call, and the experienced snipe 

 hunter not only knows the call of each variety, but 

 can imitate it with remarkable skill. 



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