r 
27 
WILLET.* 
TOmjVUS SEMIPALMJITUS. 
[Plate LVI.— Fig. 3.] 
Lath. Syn. vol. 3, j6. 152, JVb. 22. — Ind. Om. p. 722, No. 27. — Semipalmated Snipe, Arct. 
ZooLp. 469, Ab. 380. — Peale’s Museum, No. 3942. 
THIS is one of the most noisy and noted birds that inhabit 
our salt marshes in summer. Its common name is the WiJlet, 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 Pill-will-willet, Pill-will-xvillet, resound, 
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.f 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 tlie 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 
* Named in the plate Semipalmated Snipe. 
t 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. 
