The Bleating and the Breeding of the Snipe 

 By P. B. Peabody 



WHEN whole-souled, simple-hearted Fred. Maltby, one of the Bird- 

 Boys, discoverer of the North Dakota colony of the Yellow Rail, 

 wrote me, one fall, that he had made two new discoveries I held my breath; 

 and read on: " I have found," — he wrote, — " a new colony of Yellow Rail. 

 It is in a great coarse-grass marsh. To find any eggs would be impossible. 

 But I found one nest of the Woodcock, May 27, with eggs just hatching. 

 You should have seen what a fuss the sitting Woodcock made when I flush- 

 ed her from her nest in the long meadow grass." 



All this happening in northern North Dakota, I sat right down and told 

 Fred things ; and then congratulated him on a find which, I doubt not, will 

 never add anything to our knowledge of the habits of the Yellow Rail. And 

 then I fell to wondering whether or not it would ever befall me to visit 

 North Dakota again ; and flush a " Woodcock" from her nest in the long 

 meadow grass! 



Three years later, — in late May of 1909, — I yielded to the lure, and set 

 out on the mad quest for another set or two of Yellow Rail, in my much- 

 endeared old coulee-meadow in central North Dakota. I had quixotic things 

 in mind: I would strike northward and visit Maltby's new Rail colony; I 

 would find, say, four sets of Yellow Rail ; I would then make a flying cruise 

 to Leech Lake, Minnesota, en route for home; and would settle, for all time, 

 while there, the status of Mr. Currier's nondescript breeding thrush ! In 

 point of fact I headed straight for the old familiar region. Leaving James- 

 town, at mid-day, I strained every sense to catch evidence of the breeding 

 bird-forms of the prairies. Amid pouring rain I had begun to descry soar- 

 ing and singing Lark Buntings an hour before reaching Jamestown ; and was 

 as light of heart as any set-free school boy when, a few miles out of James- 

 town, I set eyes on my first Burrowing Owl, — bowing gravely at me, along 

 the right-of-way. x\mid pouring rain I reached the railway terminus ; five 

 miles from my goal. Five o'clock, next morning, found me plodding south- 

 ward, through a drizzling rain, toward the Rail Meadow. 



Everywhere, in the town pasture and along the roadways, were scatter- 

 ed pairs of Chestnut-collared Longspurs. Quite like old times it seemed to 



