Pigskins and Dowitchers 241 



about in mass movements, then returned to the tree with 

 chattering undiminished. Two bitterns left the ground to 

 which they ordinarily confined themselves and made a couple 

 of slow flights over the cattails. The chickadees and song 

 sparrows sang disjointed portions of their spring songs. Some- 

 thing about the day stirred the marsh life into pleasant 

 movement. Only the mallard with her convoy of young that 

 I had seen the week before was absent. I looked for her con- 

 stantly as I paddled along. If cups and trophies had been 

 presented in the marsh, she would have been entitled to the 

 grand prize, for she had brought out the latest brood of 

 young mallards that I had ever seen or could check in the 

 local records. I was anxious to find out how such a late 

 hatching would progress. 



I heard the clear and thin keek of one of our regular fall 

 visitors and soon found the bird on a mud flat. It was a long- 

 billed dowitcher, a brownish-colored shorebird, a little larger 

 than a robin, plump bodied, moderately long-legged, with a 

 habit of feeding in soft ground. There it probes with a bill 

 which has the advantage not only of length but of a set of 

 sensitive nerve centers which instantly determine the char- 

 acter of things it touches. As I moved closer it uttered a little 

 gurgling cry which I had long since learned was a note of 

 alarm or uneasiness. Most birds would have flown, but not 

 this one. Webster's dictionary has described the dowitcher 

 as the tamest and most easily killed of the larger snipe. It sig- 

 nificantly adds: "They are fast being exterminated." The 

 name dowitcher is supposed to have been derived from the 

 Indian ta-wish or ta-wis. If this is true the present word may 

 have evolved from the adding of an er and a change in spell- 

 ing. But like many other names the origin is obscure and an- 

 other ornithologist has suggested that the name resembles 

 the bird's call. Elliott Coues associated the word with 

 "Dutch" or "German" snipe. I had never seen just one dow- 

 itcher before. They usually appeared in the marsh in groups 



