Snipe, Sandpipers, etc. 



array ; hence the all too frequent possibility of a single 'discharge 

 killing the entire company. The marvel is that there are any 

 knots left to shoot. Mr. George H. Mackay, in The Auk, tells 

 of the "fire lighting" method of capturing them, once in vogue, 

 which was "for two men to start out after dark at half tide, one 

 of them to carry a lighted lantern, the other to reach and seize 

 the birds, bite their necks, and put them in a bag slung over the 

 shoulder." Sportsmen put a stop to the burning of marshes 

 some years ago, but not until this fine game bird, with many 

 others, had become rare. The same authority quoted describes 

 its notes as "a soft wa'h-quoit, and a little bonk." In Kansas, 

 Ohio, and other parts of the interior, where there is no surf to 

 chase out and run from, one meets scattered flocks pattering 

 about on the muddy shores of lakes and rivers, quite as actively 

 as if the water pursued them. Alighting one minute, flying off 

 the next, resting an instant, then on again after a quick little 

 run, the knot sometimes acts more like a fugitive from justice 

 than an inoffensive, peaceful lover of its kind. This restlessness 

 is not so noticeable in the autumn migration, perhaps, when the 

 birds are fat from abundant food, as in the spring, when they 

 make short pauses on the long trip, impatient to reach their 

 nesting grounds within the Arctic Circle. 



It was General Greely who first made known the eggs and 

 nest of these birds. "They arrived on June 3, 1883," he writes 

 in his "Three Years of Arctic Service," "and immediately nested 

 (near Fort Conger). . . . The ground color (of the egg) was light 

 pea-green, closely spotted with brown in small specks about the 

 size of the head of an ordinary pin. . . . Fielden has described 

 the soaring of these birds, and the peculiar whirring noise 

 they make." 



The Purple Sandpiper, Winter or Rock Snipe (Tringa 

 maritima), an extremely northern species, also observed by 

 General Greely near Thank God Harbor, comes down our 

 Atlantic coast between November and March, but not often 

 farther than Long Island or the Great Lakes. Like the Pilgrim 

 Fathers, it chooses to dwell on a "stern and rock bound coast." 

 It is wonderfully sure-footed in running over the slippery 

 bowlders dashed by the spray, picking its food as it goes from 

 among the algae attached to the rocks. It is nine inches long, 



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