WILLET. 
147 
as in the Middle States of the Union. Their appearance in the 
north of Europe is merely accidental, like the visit of the Ruff 
in America, which has, indeed, no better claim in our Fauna 
than that of the Willet in Europe, both being stragglers from 
their native abodes and ordinary migrating circuits. From 
the scarcity of this species on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, 
it is more than probable that their northern migrations are 
made chiefly up the great valley of the Mississippi ; and they 
have been seen in the spring by Mr. Say, near Engineer Can- 
tonment, on the bank of the Missouri. A few straggling 
families or flocks of the young are occasionally seen about the 
middle of August on the muddy fiats of Cohasset beach ; but 
they never breed in this part of New England, though nests 
are found in the vicinity of New Bedford. 
The Willet probably passes the winter within the tropics, or 
along the extensive shores of the Mexican Gulf. About the 
middle of March, however, its lively vociferations of pill-will- 
willet, pill-will-willet begin commonly to be heard in all the 
marshes of the sea-islands of Georgia and South Carolina. In 
the Middle States these birds arrive about the 15 th of April, 
or sometimes later, according to the season ; and from that 
period to the close of July their loud and shrill cries, audible 
for half a mile, are heard incessantly throughout the marshes 
where they now reside. Towards the close of May the Willets 
begin to lay. Their nests, at some distance from the strand, 
are made in the sedge of the salt-meadows, composed of wet 
rushes and coarse grass placed in a slight excavation in the 
tump ; and during the period of incubation, as with some other 
marsh-birds, the sides of the nest are gradually raised to the 
height of five or six inches. The eggs, about four, very thick 
at the larger end, and tapering at the opposite, are two 
thirds the size of a common hen’s egg (measuring over two 
inches in length, by one and a half in the greatest breadth) ; 
they are of a pale bright greenish olive (sometimes darker), 
largely blotched and touched with irregular spots of a bright 
blackish-brown of two shades, mixed with a few other smaller 
touches of a paler tint, the whole most numerous at the great 
