WILSON SNIPE 353 



white belly set off from the mottled breast. The only species with 

 which it might be confused is the Long-billed Dowitcher in summer 

 plumage. Prom the latter species the Snipe differs in the possession 

 of a longitudinally striped rather than irregularly mottled back and 

 by the absence of reddish coloration on its breast. Then, too, the 

 Wilson Snipe is rarely if ever found on the open flats or about salt 

 water, while the Long-billed Dowitcher is found regularly in both 

 of these situations. The sudden and erratic zig-zag flight and the rasp- 

 ing call-note, uttered as the bird takes wing, are perhaps the best field 

 marks for the sportsman. The harsh, rasping "scaipe, scaipe" is 

 essentially a note of alarm, uttered at the moment the bird flushes 

 and never so far as known while it is on the ground. This note often 

 suffices to start some or all of the other Snipe in the near vicinity. 

 Close view of a bird at rest brings out an additional character — ^the 

 large apparent size of the eyes. This is probably correlated with its 

 twilight activity. 



Although the Wilson Snipe has a wide range within the state and 

 elsewhere, it is sporadic in its local occurrence, outside of the breeding 

 season, appearing in a given locality in considerable numbers one day 

 and being totally absent on the next, perhaps to reappear on the suc- 

 ceeding day. Again, territory which seems eminently suited for the 

 support of numerous Snipe may never be visited at all by the birds. 

 Wide reaches along the edges of slow-moving streams, level open 

 marshes, and even upland meadows, when the winter has been very 

 wet, are the preferred haunts of these birds; but at times they occur 

 in distinctly dry, though grassy, situations. They are rarely if ever 

 found feeding or resting on bare open flats save under cover of dark- 

 ness. In irrigated sections Snipe are often flushed from the margins 

 of the ditches, where the growths of weeds conceal them completely 

 until they take flight. 



Much of the food of the snipe is secured by probing in soft mud, 

 a practice to which its biU is particularly adapted. The tip of the 

 upper mandible is flexible and can be moved independently of the 

 lower one, and the exposed surface toward the tips of both mandibles 

 is provided with numerous sensitive nerve-endings, each in a little pit. 

 The birds are thus enabled to feel about with the tip of the bill below 

 the surface, a practice not possible for any other wader except the 

 Woodcock of the east and probably the Dowitchers. The bill is thrust 

 perpendicularly into the soft mud and worked about for earthworms 

 and other burrowing forms of animal life without the incessantly 

 repeated probing necessary for waders provided with shorter, more 

 inflexible, and less sensitive bills; but so numerous are the probings 

 of the Snipe in some places that the whole surface of the ground is 

 literally "drilled with holes." Hunters say that it is useless to look 

 for Snipe in a locality which does not show some of these probings. 



