NATURALISTS CABINET. 



Birds of passage Varieties. 



serve him for sport during the season, if he were 

 not taken off by frost ; and what was still more 

 convenient, he always knew where to find him 

 within a hundred yards of the place. 



Snipes are birds of passage, supposed to breed 

 principally in the lower lands of Switzerland and 

 Germany; though some (particularly the jacks) 

 remain and breed in the fens, and marshy swamps 

 of this country, where their nests and eggs are 

 frequently found. They lay four or five eggs. 

 They arrive here sooner or later in the autumn, 

 regulated in respect to time, by the wind and 

 weather; but never appear till after the first 

 rains, and leave this country in the spring, as 

 soon as the warmer sun begins to absorb or ex- 

 hale the moisture from the earth, and denote the 

 approach of summer. 



THE SANDPIPER. 



THERE are at least forty varieties of this 

 genus; among which, besides the two following 

 articles, are the knot, the puno, the turnstone > 

 and the dunlin. 



The sandpiper is a small bird, seldom exceed- 

 ing the size of a thrush, at least in England, and 

 some of them are^not bigger than a sparrow. In 

 the milder climates there are larger species, such 

 as the green, the spotted, the red, and the gam- 



