(Plate If,) 
THE AMERICAN SNIPE. 
Gallinago wilsoxi (Temminek) Bonaparte. 
“ Have you heard a Snipe yet 0 " is the sportsman’s greeting-, 
during all those March days when the first warm breath of spring 
is felt from the south. But it is only after the subterranean ice in 
the meadows has been entirely dissipated, that the Snipe comes, 
‘‘When the buds of the willow trees display their yellowish ver¬ 
dure,” writes Frank Forester, "and the chirping 1 croak of the frogs 
rises from every swampy pond, we may feel confident that he is 
to be found on the meadows ; but not until the shad is abundant 
at the mouths ol our rivers, is the Snipe plentiful on the inland 
morasses." They come in little wasps, or one at a time, first to the 
salt marshes and mouths of the sea-coast brooks, then, very likely 
borne upon the wing's of an easterly rain-storm, thev ascend the 
.rivers, and for a few days people the upland bogs with a squeak¬ 
ing host, where long and tussocky grass affords protection against 
the weather and refuge in time of alarm. But they are exceed¬ 
ingly restless and capricious at this season, frequently abandoning 
the meadows altogether for the skirts of the nearest woodlands, 
willow, alder, or briar brakes, or Avherever else there may be 
springy ground sheltered from the wind. Forester declares this 
practice to be utterly at variance with that ot the British Snipe. 
“ It is during this season of mating in spring that the actions 
of the male birds are so remarkable and interesting. Rising in 
the air to a great height, they dart and twist about with wonderful 
agility, dropping plumb down from time to time in the midst of 
these eccentric gyrations, and producing, as they descend, a thrum¬ 
ming noise, possibly caused by forming the wing into a sort of 
dEolian harp.” At this moment of dropping is uttered their jar¬ 
ring, bleating love-note, which is very different from their ordinary 
shrill “scalp"; and after descending from these aerial perform¬ 
ances, they invariably settle upon some elevated object, a tree- 
stump or fence-rail, — and cackle like laying pullets, instead of 
alighting in the grass, and thereafter drop into the rushes. 
Walking through the bogs where the water has scarcely gone 
from the ooze, you will see the rich vegetable loam pitted with little 
holes,. These show where feeding Snipes haA’e thrust in their 
sensitive bills, not to suck nutriment from the mud. as used to be 
thought, but to probe for the worms, leeches, and other small 
insects upon which these birds subsist. 
Very few Snipes breed within our borders, the majority not 
pausing until they reach the seclusion ol the vast marshes in Brit¬ 
ish America, and some penetrating-even to Alaska. The nest is 
a mere depression in the grass or moss of a boggy meadow 7 , and 
the three or tour eggs are pyriform in outline, and about one and 
one-hall inches in length. The ground-color is grayish-olive, with 
many heavy, splashed markings of deep brown, most crowded at 
the larger end, and over them straggling lines of pure black. 
The down of the fledgelings is marked with white, ashy, and tints 
of brown. 
It is when the Snipes come pouring into our meadows with the 
earliest frosts, that the best sport of shooting them begins. Their 
flesh, now that they are fat and lazy, is sweet, juicy, and tender, 
and not to lie compared with the dry and sinewy meat of the busy 
spring birds. The sportsman now goes to the marshes to meet 
them, choosing as the best time those solt, moist, silvery mornings, 
which so often follow slight hoar frosts, when the heaven is cov¬ 
ered with the thinnest filmy haze, through which the sunbeams are 
poured down warm but mellow.” But even in bad weather the 
birds are there, although when it is storming one must be well 
acquainted with all their habits to fill his game-bag. The first 
maxim of Snipe-shooting, approved from Forester down, is to ap¬ 
proach down the wind. This is because the Snipe, when flushed, 
rising about breast high, hangs on the air a little before he gathers 
wing, and then darts away up wind if possible, if not, across wind, 
tack and tack, with extreme rapidity and with a zig-zag flight 
which renders him a puzzling object to the beginner. Snipe¬ 
shooting is snap-shooting. Some gunners prefer to go perfectly 
alone, but these are very good walkers ; others take dogs, setters 
or pointers, since the Snipe lies well before a “ point;” while others 
Avant only retrievers to save them labor in finding their dead and 
Avaunded birds, When flushed, the birds do not fly far, but are 
difficult to “ mark dewm” The hard frosts of November, and 
the first snow, drive them to the rice-fields of Georgia or beyond. 
This, the “Common" Snipe, is also Avidely knoAvn as “Eng¬ 
lish ” Snipe, Irom its resemblance to the European bird. But the 
two species are entirely distinct. The American Snipe ranges 
over the whole continent, including the West Indies, 
