326 THE BROWN, OR RED-BREASTED SNIFE. 



acute. The body compressed and very fleshy. The sexes, with the 



young, similar in their plumnge,, 

 but the female a little larger. 

 They moult twice in the year, ind 

 the tints are a little more brilliant 

 in summer. 



These birds, nearly nocturnal in 

 their habits and time of feeding, 

 live usually in woods, or in bogs 

 and marshes, and feed on worms 

 insects and other small animals, 

 which they seek in mud or bog- 

 moss by probing down with the 

 sensitive bill, whose extremity 

 possesses, in consequence of its 

 peculiar nervous netting, all the 



appropriate sense of touch ; when this resource fails, and also in 

 common, they seek their prey by turning over the decayed leaves of 

 the forest, under which it may happen to lurk. When pursued they 

 keep close to the ground, and have the infatuation to think that by 

 biding their head in their feathers, they are concealed from their 

 enesmies ; when close chased, or suddenly flushed, they start on wing 

 and fly out with great rapidity. The flesh is considered superior to 

 almost any other game. The species, composed of two or more sub- 

 genera, are spread all over the world, but they generally prefer cold 

 countries for their residence, in which, if temperate, they are often 

 resident the whole year, in other climates they are necessarily migra- 

 tory from the nature of their food. They nest on the ground ; and 

 the eggs are about four. 



The Eed-Breasted Snipe begins to visit the sea coast of New Jersey 

 early in April, arriving from its winter quarters probably in tropical 

 America. After spending about a month on the muddy marshes, and 

 sand flats, left bare by the recess of the tides, a more powerful impulse 

 than that of hunger impels the wandering flocks towards their natal 

 regions in the north, where secluded, from the prying eye of man, and 

 relieved from molestation, they pass the period of reproduction, the 

 wide range of which continues, without interruption, from the borders 

 of Lake Superior to the shores of the Arctic Sea. 



The Ked-Breasted Snipes are always seen associated in flocks, and 

 though many are bred in the interior around the great northern lakes, 

 they now all assemble towards the sea coast, as a region that affords 

 them an inexhaustible supply of their favorite food of insects, molluscs, 

 and small shell-fish; and here they continue, a succession of wan- 

 dering and needy bands, until the commencement of cold weather 

 advertises them of the approach of famine ; when, by degrees, they 

 recede beyond the southern limits of the Union. While here, they 



