DOWITCHER. 171 



their fare with vegetable diet, such as the roots of the Zostera 

 marina ; and I have also found in their stomachs the whitish 

 oval seeds of some marsh or aquatic plant. They likewise, in 

 common with the Sandpipers and many other wading birds, 

 swallow gravel to assist the trituration of their food. 



We know to-day something more than Nuttall could tell us of the 

 nesting habits of the Dowitcher, or "Deutscher's Snipe," as the 

 bird was originally called, to distinguish it from the " English 

 Snipe," now known as Wilson's. Our bird is still called " German 

 Snipe " at some localities on the coast. 



A number of nests have been taken in the Far North, where the 

 birds find suitable feeding-grounds in the bogs and marshes amid 

 the barren lands bordering the Arctic Ocean. Stragglers from the 

 main flocks are met with in summer throughout the fur countries 

 and down to the forty-fourth parallel; but it does not follow that 

 they breed so far to the southward. Large flocks appear on the 

 Atlantic coast during both the spring and autumn migrations, 

 though they seem to pass over New Brunswick and Nova Scotia 

 without alighting, in the spring. But they move northward rapidly 

 and with few stoppages, while they return quite leisurely and are 

 therefore considered more abundant in the autumn in all localities. 



In the vicinity of the Great Lakes the birds are rarely seen, though 

 it is known that large flocks journey north and south by way of the 

 Mississippi Valley and across the Great Plains. In winter the 

 birds are found in the West Indies and Brazil. 



Note. — The Long-Bii.led Dowitcher (^M. scolopaceus) has 

 lately been separated from griseus. It is a larger bird, with a 

 longer bill; and though chiefly confined to the Western Province, 

 examples are seen regularly on the Atlantic coast. 



