also breeds commonly in the vicinity oi 

 Salt Lake, Utah. The writer has a 

 clutch of four eggs which were taken at 

 Long Lake, Assiniboia, Canada. They 

 have a greenish drab background, and 

 are spotted, blotched and scrawled, chief- 

 ly about the large end, with dark brown. 



While tramping about the Calumet 

 swamps of northern Indiana in a mist) 

 and heavy atmosphere of April, I wit- 

 nessed the song flight of the Snipe. It 

 is quite suggestive of the aerial perform- 

 ance of the American woodcock. I was 

 first attracted to a grassy spot by a pe- 

 culiar clucking, not unlike the notes of a 

 Virginia rail, and presently a Snipe arose 

 from a bog and circled about overhead. 

 At intervals it darted obliquely through 

 the air, producing a whistling sound, re- 

 sembling the "whiz" of a missile through 

 space. Suddenly the bird dropped to the 

 ground and resumed his "clucking" in 

 the presence of another bird, presumably 

 the female. He soon took to wing 

 again, and this time he maintained a per- 

 fectly straight horizontal course at a 

 height of about ten feet, until suddenly 

 joined by another bird, the two ascended 

 into the cloudy sky together, both pro- 

 ducing the whistling sound. 



Mr. William Brewster writes as fol- 

 lows of this peculiar spring-time per- 

 formance of Wilson's Snipe, which, is 

 usually enacted at the dawn of morning 

 or the twilight of evening, but may be 

 witnessed in broad daylight or even 

 sometimes in autumn. He says : "Wil- 



son's Snipe mounts to a considerable 

 height above his favorite meadows and 

 darts downward with great velocity, mak- 

 ing at each descent a low yet penetrating 

 tremulous sound, which suggests the win- 

 nowing of a domestic pigeon's wings, or, 

 if heard at a distance, the bleating of a 

 goat, and which is thought to be pro- 

 duced by the rushing of the air through 

 the wings of the Snipe." 



Wilson's Snipe is a bird that com- 

 mands attention at all times, and many a 

 farmer's boy finds it an interesting ob- 

 ject as he traverses the swampy margins 

 of our lakes and streams. Mr. Langille 

 says of his own experiences with this 

 bird : "How gratifying to childhood 

 curiosity was it to hide away in the alder 

 bushes and watch him as he took his 

 morning or evening repast. See him 

 walk — almost run— with nimble, easy 

 steps ; his long bill — schneppe — which, in 

 the old Saxon language, gave the bird 

 its name, pointing obliquely forward and 

 downward, and his short tail somewhat 

 thrown up. Now he probes the soft 

 mud, pushing his limber bill down half 

 its length or more, and testing almost 

 every square inch for quite, a distance 

 around, the delicate external membrane 

 of that strongly specialized instrument, 

 well supplied with the most sensitive 

 nerves, readily detecting the presence of 

 earth-worms, or such tender roots of 

 plants as are agreeable to the bird's 

 taste." Gerard Alan Abbott. 



A FEW BIRD HOMES. 



Rain ! rain ! and still it rains, and I am 

 longing to visit my bird friends and see 

 how they are getting on with housekeep- 

 ing. I wonder if the little phoebes in 

 the home under the bank, where this 

 spring was a landslide, have put on their 

 sober dresses yet? The last sunshiny 

 day they hadn't a feather to show as they 

 stretched up their open mouths for food ; 

 and have the little birds in the white- 



throated sparrow's nest, on the side hill 

 pasture close beside the cow path, opened 

 their eyes yet? How many eggs are 

 there now in the blue jay's nest in the tall 

 pine by the river's bank? There were 

 only three when last seen. 



When it began to rain the kingbirds 

 were building in the old sweet apple tree. 

 How I wish I knew if there are yet any 

 esrcfs there ! P>ut most of all, I want to 



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