TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REJVUNISCENCBS. 211 



places. Often had I watched these 

 long billed and graceful snipes, 

 how they fed with their long bills. 

 This had to be done very carefully 

 and unseen, as the least noise 

 of approach would scare them, 

 as well as hundreds of plover a 

 long distance further off; and at 

 various occasions I noticed them 

 pulling a long and wriggling earth- 

 worm out of their under-ground 

 holes. With their keen eyes they 

 would walk around the waterpools 

 or some soft ground, at wet places, 

 where earthworm-holes, enclosing 

 the large variety of earthworm 

 existed; and in these they inserted 



snails, minnows, young crawfish 

 and frogs abound, though I had 

 no occasion ever to have seen 

 them feed on the latter. 



Curlew hunting nowadays is a 

 rare and tedious affair around 

 San Antonio. The quiet old hunt- 

 ing grounds of the good olden days, 

 abounding with game, are now 

 nearly all converted into cultivated 

 land, and Mister Curlew seeks his 

 haunts in the marshy regions 

 along the coast. Then also, dur- 

 ing _ the late many years, our 

 prairies had not the rain supply, 

 as was the case in the olden times. 

 Where now the enterprising and 



Mission "San Juan," Near Berg's Mill, South or San Antonio, Fifty Years Ago; 

 (From Nature By H. Lungkwitz) 



their long and slightly curved bill, 

 to grab the worm and extricate it. 

 These snipes have a curved, knob- 

 like protuberance at the end of 

 their bill, and with this they 

 dig the ground for worms and also 

 larval beetles and insects. The 

 same ingenuity is exercised by 

 others of the snipe family, in 

 particular the jack-snipe, and of 

 which the Mitchel Lake and Blue 

 Wing Lake preserve hunters and 

 others undoubtedly are aware. 

 For these reasons snipe prefer 

 to be in marshy watering places, 

 where worms, insects and larvae, 



flourishing Collin's farm is situated, 

 in olden times these grounds up 

 to the Leona hills, were one open 

 prairie, and each year, especially 

 in spring, rains fell in torrential 

 masses and made the roads often 

 impassable for even a hunter on 

 horseback, as experienced by the 

 writer in olden times. Old time 

 teamsters, with six and eight 

 mules attached to their freight 

 wagons, had a time of it to get 

 along the old Castroville r»ad up 

 to the Leona or to Castroville; 

 and often wagons and Mexican 

 carretas with burros were seen 



