WILLET. 147 



as in the Middle States of the Union. Their appearance in the 

 north of Europe is merely accidental, like the visit of the Ruiif 

 in America, which has, indeed, no better claim in our Fauna 

 than that of the Willet in Europe, both being stragglers from 

 their native abodes and ordinary migrating circuits. From 

 the scarcity of this species on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, 

 it is more than probable that their northern migrations are 

 made chiefly up the great valley of the Mississippi ; and they 

 have been seen in the spring by Mr. Say, near Engineer Can- 

 tonment, on the bank of the Missouri. A few straggling 

 families or flocks of the young are occasionally seen about the 

 middle of August on the muddy flats of Cohasset beach ; but 

 they never breed in this part of New England, though nests 

 are found in the vicinity of New Bedford. 



The Willet probably passes the winter within the tropics, or 

 along the extensive shores of the Mexican Gulf. About the 

 middle of March, however, its lively vociferations of pill-will- 

 ■wilkt, pill-will-willet begin commonly to be heard in all the 

 marshes of the sea-islands of Georgia and South Carolina. In 

 the Middle States these birds arrive about the 15 th of April, 

 or sometimes later, according to the season ; and from that 

 period to the close of July their loud and shrill cries, audible 

 for half a mile, are heard incessantly throughout the marshes 

 where they now reside. Towards the close of May the Willets 

 begin to lay. Their nests, at some distance from the strand, 

 are made in the sedge of the salt-meadows, composed of wet 

 rushes and coarse grass placed in a slight excavation in the 

 tump ; and during the period of incubation, as with some other 

 marsh-birds, the sides of the nest are gradually raised to the 

 height of five or six inches. The eggs, about four, very thick 

 at the larger end, and tapering at the opposite, are two 

 thirds the size of a common hen's egg (measuring over two 

 inches in length, by one and a half in the greatest breadth) ; 

 they are of a pale bright greenish olive (sometimes darker), 

 largely blotched and touched with irregular spots of a bright 

 blackish-brown of two shades, mixed with a few other smaller 

 touches of a paler tint, the whole most numerous at the great 



