178 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
frost is out of the bogs, and returns again from the north in September, 
lingering until November. Snipe shooting is notoriously uncertain, bogs 
which are alive with them one day being almost deserted the next, and 
marshes which afford good shooting one season being almost worthless the 
next year. 
Although the larger number pass farther north to breed, a few always 
remain in middle Michigan for this purpose, and probably there are few 
counties, even in the southern part of the state, in which Wilson’s Snipe 
does not nest occasionally. We have single records of nesting from 
Jackson county (Watkins), Washtenaw county (Purdy, Covert); several 
records from Kalamazoo county (Gibbs, Syke), and the vicinity of Lansing 
(J. E. Nichols, W. B. Barrows). We have an egg in the Agricultural 
Fig. 51. Wilson’s Snipe. 
Photograph from mounted specimen. (Original.) 
College collection taken near Lansing by a friend of Mr. Jason E. Nichols, 
whose dog, while hunting Snipe late in the spring, flushed a female from her 
nest and broke all but one of the four eggs. During some summers Wilson’s 
Snipe are fairly common on Chandler’s Marsh, Ingham county, during June 
and July, and unquestionably nest there in some numbers. In other 
years not an individual is to be found there between June first and the 
middle of August. 
During the late spring (undoubtedly while mating) the bird has a habit 
of “bleating,” which consists of rising to a considerable height and then 
pitching downward obliquely toward the ground with great rapidity, making 
a peculiar sound with the wings, and probably also at the same time with 
the voice. The same individual will repeat this action half a dozen times 
in succession, and often several birds may be within hearing at the same 
