Species V. SCOLOPAX SEMIPALMATA* 
SEMIPALMATED SNIPE. 
[Plate LVI. Fig. 3.] 
Arct. Zool. p. 409, No. 380.f 
This is one of the most noisy and noted birds that inhabit our salt 
marshes in summer. Its common name is the WiUet, by which appella- 
tion 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 re- 
iterations of Pill-will-willet, Pill-will-willet, resound, almost incessantly, 
along the marshes ; and may be distinctly heard at the distance of more 
than half a mile. About the twentieth of May the Willets generally 
begin to lay. J 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 tapering to a 
narrower point at the other than those of the common hen ; they mea- 
sure 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 some the ground color 
has a tinge of green ; in others of bluish. They are excellent eating, 
as I have often experienced when obliged to dine on them in my hunting 
excursions through the salt marshes. The young are covered with a 
gray colored down ; run off soon after they leave the shell ; and are led 
and assisted in their search of food by the mother ; while the male keeps 
a continual watch around for their safety. 
The anxiety and affection manifested by these birds for their eggs and 
* This and the five following species belong to the genus To/anus of Bechstein. 
t Scolopax semipalmati, Lath. Syn. nr., p. 152., No. 22. — Id. Lid. Orn, p. 722, 
No. 27.— Gmel. Syst. t., p. 659, No. 331. 
X From some unknown cause, the height of laying of these birds is said to be full 
two weeks later than it was twenty years ago. 
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