246 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
Every where, however, to the northward and west- 
ward, or northward and eastward of the Carolinas, he is, 
probably, more or less entirely an occasional spring .and 
autumnal visitor; coming the earlier in spring, and re- 
turning the later in autumn, the farther south and west 
the land lies, until he becomes a mere winter resident, 
departing so soon as the spring sunshine, becoming too 
warm, gives token of the approaching breeding season, and 
remaining absent until the freezing of hisfeeding places drive 
him southward still, whither he finds waters which are never 
congealed, morasses never impervious to his sensitive and 
busy bill. ° 
The seasons of the appearance of snipe in the mead- 
ows and salt marshes, where the spring and tide waters 
meet, which are for the most part the scenes of their first 
appearance, are to be recognized by the simultaneous 
appearance of the blue-birds in the vicinity of buildings, 
of the shad in the river estuaries, by the croaking of the 
awakened frogs in the pools and quagmires, and by the 
bursting of the willow buds; all of which indications of 
the spring occur nearly at the same moment in every 
various locality from the banks of the Potomac to those 
of the St. Lawrence. 
The frost must be entirely out of the ground, especial- 
ly in the wet, cold lowlands and meadow-swamps, which 
are the favorite feeding grounds of this bird, and the 
spring grass should have come up tender, succulent, and 
green ; the close of winter should have been distinguished 
by the raw north-eastern equinoctial gale, an2 this should 
have been succeeded by warm, genial weather, with an 
