502 PLOVER TRIBE. 
vegetation of marshy places, from which they rise suddenly when flushed, with 
the well-known staich, but without much whirring of the wings, and dart off with 
lightning-like rapidity. Of the flight of Wilson’s snipe Dr G. B. Grinnell 
observes that “most birds when they rise from the ground appear to have some 
definite idea of the direction in which they wish to go, and having started in a 
particular line of flight, keep to it, unless turned by some alarming apparition 
before them. Not so with the snipe, however; he springs from the ground utter- 
ing his curious squeaking ery, darts a few yards one way, changes his mind, and 
turns almost at right angles to his original course; then he appears to think he 








































A FAMILY OF WILSON’S SNIPE. 
has made a mistake, and now alters his direction, and so twists off, ‘angling’ 
across the meadow until he is out of gunshot. He then either rises high in the 
air and swings about for awhile, looking for a desirable spot to alight, or else 
settles down into a straight, swift course, which he keeps up until his fright is over, 
or he has come to a spot which is to his liking, when he throws himself to the 
earth, and with a peculiar toss of his wings checks his progress, and alights.” 
Fortunately for the sportsman in India, where the common snipe is more abundant 
than elsewhere, these birds do not generally indulge in such vagaries, but fly 
straight away. The writer has, however, occasionally seen the common species 
dart, although the pintail does so but very rarely. Unless flushed, snipe are but 
rarely seen on the wing during the day; and their chief feeding-time, like their 
migration, is by night. In Europe snipe are essentially solitary birds, but this can 
scarcely be said to be the case in India, where a “whisp” of from six to a dozen 
