1894
Sept. 21
(No 2)
Lake Umbagog, Maine.
but for me still more strongly charged with associations
very dear to memory.
  For half-an-hour or more hundreds of Leopard Frogs
croaked unceasingly. I had but to shut my eyes to imagine
that it was a mild April morning on Concord River but
I listened in vain for any other of the sounds of spring
until presently a Snipe drummed directly overhead. Soon
afterward I heard another & then another until at one
time they were drumming on every side and almost
incessantly. The marshes were evidently alive with them
to-night for besides the drumming birds I saw dozens
of others cutting to and fro against the faint light
in the western sky. As they shot down to their
feeding grounds their wings made a rushing sound so
exactly like that of Ducks's wings that I was constantly
deceived. When they merely flitted from one mud bank
to the next their wings rustled loudly. They used
only the scaipe cry when flying but the feeding birds
kept up a constant calling to one another making a
low but penetrating keep, kr-r-uck very like the call
of the Florida Gallinule. I think that I have identified
this cry before but it puzzled me, at first, this evening.
As a rule only two birds were calling at one time one
appearing to answer the other. The call was varied a
good deal in both force & tone. At times it was not 
unlike the kep of a Carolina Rail but there can be no
doubt that the Snipe were the authors of the sound.
These Snipe were feeding on small isolated lumps &
hummocks of mud which were surrounded by water six
to eight inches in depth. They came to this place from
every direction & some of them evidently from long distances.
[margin]Leopard frogs[/margin]
[margin]Gallinago 
delicata.[/margin]
[margin]Add to
this work[/margin]