32 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
in Hawaii, Bermuda and Great Britain. Cold affects 
them little. My friend, Colonel W. D. Pickett, ob- 
served snipe wintering in Wyoming, where the mercury 
often went down to from twenty to thirty degrees 
below zero. Here, in warm springs that were never 
frozen, the birds remained and seemed to prosper all 
through the winter. In the same way mallard ducks 
winter in open water holes in the interior of Alaska. 
Usually the snipe reaches the middle and southern 
New England States early in the month of April, 
though this is a matter which depends largely on the 
weather. Here they loiter for some time, the greater 
part of them moving on farther to the North, where 
they breed. Nests have been found in New York 
State, and in the summer of 1908 I saw in August 
on the banks of the Housatonic River, in Connecticut, 
snipe which I believe had been hatched there. 
Most of the snipe, however, go as far north as 
Canada; and New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and suita- 
ble localities just north of the boundary line between 
the United States and the British possessions are 
favorite breeding grounds. 
The nest is usually a hollow in the open marsh, where 
the moss or grass has been pushed aside and bent 
down to make a concavity which will hold the four 
eggs. These, like those of many of this group, are 
sharply pointed—pyriform—and always lie in the nest 
with the four small ends together. They are grayish 
green or olive in color, thickly dotted, blotched and 
spotted with dark brown, the spots growing larger at 
