Snipe, Sandpipers, etc. 



Wilson's Snipe 



(Gallinago delicata) 



Called also: "ENGLISH" SNIPE; COMMON SNIPE; JACK 

 SNIPE; AMERICAN SNIPE; SHAD BIRD. 



Length — lo. 50 to 1 1.50 inches. 



Male and Female — Upper parts varied with black, brown, and 

 buff; crown dusky, with buff stripe; throat white; neck 

 and breast buff, streaked with dusky ; underneath white, the 

 sides with blackish bars. Outer feather of wings white; 

 wings brownish black, the feathers barred with reddish 

 brown and margined with white. Tail bay and black, 

 the outer feathers barred with black and white; the inner 

 ones black, marked across the end with rufous and tipped 

 with soiled white. Bill about 2.50 inches long and resem- 

 bling the woodcock's. 



Range — North America at large, from Hudson Bay and Alaska, 

 south in winter to central and northern South America and 

 the West Indies. Nests in far north chiefly, rarely in the 

 northern United States. 



When the first shad run up our rivers to spawn, and the 

 shad bush opens its feathery white blossoms in the roadside 

 thickets in March, the snipe come back from the south to haunt 

 the open wet places of the lowlands, fresh water marshes, 

 soaked fields, and the sheltered sunny spots in a clearing that 

 are the first to thaw. Only in exceptionally dry seasons do these 

 birds go near salt water marshes. Generally speaking, snipe 

 prefer more open country than woodcock; but plenty of the 

 former have been flushed in bush-grown, springy woods — the 

 woodcock's paradise when the lowlands become flooded. The 

 russet colors and markings of these birds, that so perfectly mimic 

 their surroundings as they lie close, conceal them from all but 

 the sharpest eyes. We may know of their arrival by the clusters 

 of holes in the mud; for both snipe and woodcock have the habit 

 of thrusting their bills into the soft ground up to the nostrils, feel- 

 ing for worms as they probe with the sensitive tip whose upper 

 half is flexible and capable of hooking the earthworm from its 

 hole. As the snipe's eyes are set far back in its head, it must be 

 guided only by the sense of touch. The larvse of insects and 

 insects themselves are found by overturning old leaves and 



204 



