648 AVES— SNIPE. 



are very eagerly sought after by our gunners. Their food consists of small 

 worms, slugs, and the larvae of insects. During the breeding season, while 

 it plays over the moors, this bird makes a pleasing, humming, and piping 

 sound. Their flesh is justly reckoned among feathered dainties. 



From the point of the bill, to the end of the tail, the snipe measures about 

 twelve inches, and from the point of each wing, when extended, about fif- 

 teen or sixteen ; the head is divided longwise by a pale red line, parallel to 

 which on each side, is a black line, and over the eyes there runs another line 

 pretty much of the same color as that on the middle of the head. The 

 feathers that spring from the shoulders reach almost as far as the end of the 

 tail, the outward half from tlie shaft being of a pale red. 



THE WILLET, OR SEMIPALMATED SNIPE, i 



Is peculiar to America, and is one of the most noisy and noted birds that 

 inhabit our salt marshes in summer. Its common food is willet. It arrives 

 from the south on the shores of the middle states, about the beginning of 

 May ; and from that time till the last of July, its loud and shrill reiterations 

 of ■pill-icill-willet, piU-ivill-ivillet, resound almost incessantly along the 

 marshes, and may be distinctly heard at the distance of more than a mile. 

 Their nests are built on the ground among the grass of the marshes, and are 

 composed of wet rushes and coarse grass. 



The anxiety and affection manifested by this bird for its eggs and young, 

 are truly interesting. A person no sooner enters the marshes, than he is 

 beset by the willets flying around and skimming over his head, vociferating 

 with great violence their common cry of pill-will-willet ; and uttering at 

 times a loud clicking note as he approaches nearer to their nest. As they 

 occasionally alight, and slowly shut their long white wings speckled with 

 black, they have a mournful note, expressive of great tenderness. They 

 chiefly subsist on small shell-fish, marine worms, and aquatic insects. They 

 have a summer and also a winter dress, in its colors differing so much in 

 these seasons, as scarcely to be known as the same species. 



There are other individuals of this tribe, common in the United States, 

 which we have not room to describe. 



1 Scolopax semipalmata, Wilson. 



