174 
WADING BIRDS. 
April, my attention was called to the same invisible voice, 
which issued from the floating clouds of a dark evening ; the 
author was here called the Alewife Bird, from its arrival with 
the shoals of that fish in the neighboring lake. From the ele- 
vation at which the sound issued, probably, it appeared less 
loud and distinct than that which I have since heard from the 
English Snipe. I imagined then that the noise was made by 
the quick and undulatory fanning of the wings ; but this would 
not produce the shrillness of tone by which it is characterized, 
as any one may satisfy himself by hearkening to the very dif- 
ferent low buzz made by the wings of the Humming Bird. In 
this instance, as well as in the former, all my sporting acquaint- 
ance were familiar with this quivering call, but had never 
decided upon its author. At the same time I observed, flying 
high and rapid, a pair of these Snipes, probably instigated by 
anger and jealousy, who then uttered a discordant quacking 
sound, — something like the bleat they make when they have 
tlescended to the ground, and which they accompany with an 
attitude of peculiar stupidity, balancing the head forwards, and 
the tail upwards and downwards, like the action of some autom- 
aton toy, jerked and set in motion by a tight-drawn string. 
After incubation, which takes place rather early in the spring, 
the humming is no longer heard, and the sprightly aerial evo- 
lutions which appeared so indefatigable have now given way 
to sedater attitudes and feebler tones. A few pairs no doubt 
breed in the extensive and almost inaccessible morasses of 
Cambridge ponds or lagoons ; and I have been informed that 
they select a tuft of sedge for the foundation of the nest, which 
is constructed with considerable art. The eggs, like those of 
the European species, about four, are perhaps alike olivaceous 
and spotted with brown. These birds probably scatter them- 
selves over the interior of the continent to breed, nowhere 
associating in great numbers ; nor are they at all common in the 
hyperboreal retreats chosen by so many of the other wading 
birds. My friend Mr. Ives, of Salem, also informs me that a 
few pairs of this species breed in that vicinity. 
The Snipe, almost nocturnal in its habits, conceals itself with 
