254 THE JERSEY COAST. 



" Oh, pshaw ! " responded Bill, in intense dis 

 gust, "I thought it meant a whole bookful of 

 things." 



' " The sandpipers, however, come under the family 

 of snipes, and are called tringcB. Among these are 

 enumerated the robin-snipe and the grass-plover, as 

 I told you before, the black-breast, the krieker, or 

 short-neck, and several scarcer varieties. The yelp- 

 ers and yellow-legs, the tiny teeter, and the willet 

 are tattlers, genus totanus, while the marlin is the 

 god wit limosa. The sickle-bUls, jacks, andfutes are 

 curlews, genus numenius." 



" And now that you have got through," grumbled 

 Bill again, " can you whistle a snipe any better -or 

 shoot him any easier ? Do you know why he stools 

 well in a south-westerly wind, why one stools better 

 than another, or why any of them stool at all ? Do 

 you know why he flies after a storm, or why some 

 go in flocks and others don't, or why there is usually 

 a flight on the fifteenth and twenty-fifth of August ? 

 When books tell us these things, I shall think more 

 of the writers." 



"These matters are not easy to find out; even 

 you gunners, who have been on the bay all your 

 lives, where your fathers lived before you, do not 

 know. But now tell us what other sport you have 

 here." 



" On the mainland there are a good many Eng- 

 lish snipe in spring, while in the fall we catch blue- 

 fish and shoot ducks. The black ducks and teal 

 will soon be along; but ever since the inlet was 



