WILSON’S SNIPE 133 
on these coasts comes after one or two sharp 
frosts have closed their free lunch in the 
swamps of the interior, driving the birds from 
their summer ranges and reminding them that 
it is time to look for pleasanter quarters fur- 
ther south. They form no large flocks, coming 
along in ‘‘wisps’’ of two or three, mostly at 
night, but, I think, not infrequently by day. 
Authorities are divided as to this bird’s habit 
of migration, some saying that the Snipe al- 
ways migrates by night, but from my own ob- 
servation I am satisfied that he travels in the 
daylight also. I remember seeing a flock of 
seven (the largest number that I ever saw 
traveling together) arrive in the marsh in mid- 
afternoon, and my companion and I had the 
pleasure of making it our own ‘‘personally 
conducted excursion’? before it left. What 
seems most remarkable to us was the fact that 
when we flushed them, after making a few cir- 
cles in the air, they would come back to our 
whistles just as a bunch of plover might have 
done. This is almost the only occasion on 
which I have seen them pay any attention to a 
call, and presume that then the little family 
did not want to be separated—nor did we our- 
