The Wilson Snipe 



of twisted sedges. Seeing that I was not to be deflected by violence, the 

 mistress of the nest flung herself upon a wet island hard by and indulged 

 in a vigorous decoy pantomime. The appeal was not to hunger this time, 

 nor was there any pretense of broken bones. In her extremity the bird 

 offered herself — upon the altar of desire. The yonigic motif of the pose 

 was unmistakable, and the elevated tail, spread fan-wise, exposed rufous 

 tips of unsuspected brilliance, and formed a setting really seductive. But 

 again the bird had guessed wrong. The birdman proved a veritable 

 St. Jerome, and the lady, scorned, left in highest dudgeon. 



Returning a little later, with a view to securing a snapshot of the 

 rising bird, she flushed less noisily, while I was still twenty feet away. 

 Another attempt put her off at thirty feet; and on a still later occasion she 

 sneaked away, instead, and flushed at a considerable distance. 



So long as intruders are near his swamp, Jack himself keeps a sharp 

 lookout; and he does not hesitate to appropriate for the purpose any ele- 

 vated station, — fence-post, hay-rick, or tree-top. On such occasions, 

 when the bird is settled on a post, regarding you with sober down-turned 

 beak and watchful eye, the effect is irresistibly comical. Still more 

 diverting and very much rarer is the sight of two or three youngsters, 

 with half-grow r n beaks, trooping after a mother who is all solicitude or 

 brooding tenderness. And the pleasure which the youngsters evince 

 when it comes their turn to thrust long skewers into the mud is diverting 

 in the extreme. Theirs is a joy akin to the making of mud pies, and what 

 child is there who would not just love to make mud pies for a living! 



The history of the Jack-snipe as a breeding bird of California has 

 been a succession of surprises. We all knew in a vague way that the birds 

 bred in the swamps of the northeastern plateau country about Tahoe, and 

 in the Modoc-Lassen region. But when Joseph Mailliard reported 1 the 

 taking by A. van Rossem of a set of four eggs near Gorman, in extreme 

 northwestern Los Angeles County, we gasped with surprise. The date was 

 April 24, 1914, and the altitude 3800, approximately that of Tahoe. 

 This was a hundred miles south of any previous breeding record for the 

 species, and the record itself proves to be, most amusingly, the first 

 specific published record for this State. Other records from northern 

 localities promptly followed. I have myself found Jack-snipe breeding at 

 Goose Lake, in Modoc County, and at Bishop and Lone Pine, in the 

 Owens Valley. But Judge Edward Wall capped the climax by publishing 

 in 1919 1 an account of the Wilson Snipe as a long-established breeding 

 bird near San Bernardino. Judge Wall's experience reaches back to 

 1887; and, specifically, he found a nest containing three eggs in 1917 

 within two miles of the city of San Bernardino, and in 1918 a nest con- 



1 The Condor, Vol. XVI., Nov. 1914, p. 261. -The Condor, Vol. XXI., Sept. 1019, pp. 207-209. 



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