SNIPES AND SANDPIPERS 
245 
Washington, rather common from Feb. to Nov.; a few winter. Long 
Island, rare S. R. Apl.-Nov., a few winter. Ossining, common S. R., Feb. 
19-Dec. 2. Cambridge, rare S. R., uncommon T. V., Mch. 15-Nov. 10. 
N. Ohio, tolerably common, S. R., Mch. 10-Oct. 20. Glen Ellyn, not com- 
mon S. R., May 17 (doubtless earlier) to Sept. 18. SE. Minn., Apl. 5-Oct. 18. 
Nest, of a few dry leaves, on the ground in the woods. Eggs, 4, buffy, 
distinctly and obscurely spotted with shades of rufous, F60 x 1'23. Date , 
Caper’s Is., S. C., Feb. 13; Lower Cedar Point, Md., Feb. 25; Cambridge, 
Apl. 15; Wheatland, Ind., Mch. 4; Petersburg, Mich., Apl. 16. 
During the spring and early summer this Owl among Snipe haunts 
low, wooded bottom-lands; in August, while molting, it resorts to corn- 
fields near woods, and in the fall migrating birds frequent wooded 
uplands. But at all times it requires a soft, moist earth in which it may 
easily probe with its long bill for its fare of earthworms. The holes 
it makes are known as ‘borings.’ They are generally found in little 
groups, and are, of course, certain evidence of the presence of Wood- 
cock. Gurdon Trumbull discovered that the Woodcock can move the 
tip of its upper mandible independently of the lower one, and this 
organ is made to act as a finger to assist the bird in drawing its food 
from the ground. ( Forest and Stream , XXXV, 1890, 412.) 
The flight of the Woodcock is sometimes accompanied by a high, 
whistling sound produced by its narrow, stiffened primaries in beating 
the air. When flushed near its nest or young, the parent bird gen- 
erally feigns lameness or a broken wing, and leads the intruder some 
distance from its treasures before taking wing. 
The cloak of night always lends a certain mystery to the doings of 
nocturnal birds, and more often than not their habits justify our unusual 
interest in them. Few of the mating evolutions of our birds are more 
remarkable than the sky dance of the Woodcock. He begins on the 
ground with a formal, periodic peent, peent, an incongruous preparation 
for the wild rush that follows. It is repeated several times before he 
springs from the ground, and on whistling wings sweeps out on the first 
loop of a spiral which may take him three hundred feet from the ground. 
Faster and faster he goes, louder and shriller sounds his wing-song; 
then, after a moment’s pause, with darting, headlong flight, he pitches 
in zigzags to the earth, uttering as he falls a clear, twittering whistle. 
He generally returns to near the place from which he arose, and the 
peent is at once resumed as a preliminary to another round in the sky. 
In the gray of early morning this strange performance is repeated. 
1894. Brewster, W., Auk, XI, 291-298 (song). 
The European Woodcock {227. Scolopax rusticola ) bears a general re- 
semblance to our Woodcock, but is much larger; the underparts are barred 
with black, the wings are barred with rufous, and the outer primaries are not 
emarginate. It is of accidental occurrence in eastern North America. 
230, Gallinago delieata (Ord). Wilson’s Snipe. Ads . — Upperparts 
black, barred, bordered, and mottled with different shades of cream-buff; 
wings fuscous ; outer edge of outer primary and tips of greater coverts white ; 
throat white; neck and breast ochraceous-buff, indistinctly streaked with 
blackish; belly white, sides barred with black; under tail-coverts buffy, 
