27 



SEMI-PALMATED SNIPE. 

 SCOLOPAX SEMI-PALMATA. 

 [Plate LVI.— Fig. 3.] 



Arct. Zool. p, 469, JTo. 380 -Peaie's Museum, JVo. 3942. 



THIS is one of the most noisy and noted birds that inhabit 

 our salt marshes in summer. Its common name is the Willet^ by 

 which appellation it is universally known along the shores of New 

 York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, in all of which places 

 it breeds in great numbers. 



The Willet is peculiar to America. It arrives from the south 

 on the shores of the middle states about the twentieth of April, or 

 beginning of May; and from that time to the last of July its loud 

 and shrill reiterations of PilUwiU'willet^ Pill-ivill-iviUetj resounds, 

 almost incessantly, along the marshes ; and may be distinctly 

 heard at the distance of more than half a mile. About the twen* 

 tieth of May the Willets generally begin to lay."^ Their nests are 

 built on the ground, among the grass of the salt marshes, pretty 

 well towards the land, or cultivated fields, and are composed of 

 wet rushes and coarse grass, forming a slight hollow or cavity in a 

 tussock. This nest is gradually increased during the period of 

 laying and sitting, to the height of five or six inches. . The eggs 

 are usually four in number, very thick at the great end, and taper- 

 ing to a narrower point at the other than those of the common hen; 

 they measure two inches and one-eighth in length, by one and a 

 half in their greatest breadth, and are of a dark dingy olive, largely 

 blotched with blackish brown, particularly at the great end. In 



* From some unknown cause, tlie height of laying of these birds is said to be full two weeks later 

 than it was twenty years ago. 



