The Wilson Snipe 
Taken near Santa Barbara Photo by the Author 
“JACK” AS THE GUNNER SEES HIM 
prefer to think of the Jack-snipe, but rather as a member of society. 
For Jack is an ardent lover, a devoted husband, and a resourceful father; 
and Mrs. Jack, no less, is possessed of all the domestic virtues. Let me 
take the reader to Snipeville. Shall it be an open, sunny swamp in 
Owens Valley? The date is the 21st of May. The air is lull of hooting 
males (say, three or four), a challenge for proper birdmen to heave to for 
the night. As we cast about for a possible camping site, my attention is 
arrested by a solicitous bird who is “yelping” from the ground. The 
notes are dissyllables, pe chep' pe chep' pe chep ', endlessly iterative, and 
uttered earnestly for minutes at a time. I can see the bird’s mandibles 
playing rhythmically, and he sways his head slowly from side to side as 
he pipes. After two long rounds he takes to a leisure wing and so joins 
the merry company of cavorting hooters. In the language of Tam o’ 
the Scoots, Junior: “Hoot, mon, but it was an awesome sicht to see 
the auld bird ootlined against the jaggedest Sierras, the while he win¬ 
nowed the air with his pinions and quavered for the delectation of his 
lady love.” She, poor dear, was enjoying a little refection of worms 
while her lord wailed and hurtled aloft. I saw her eating hard by, while 
the male bird quitted the earth. Food must have been very abundant 
in this particular bog, for though she prodded and gobbled most vigor¬ 
ously, the lady did not require to leave the space of a square foot in 
fifteen minutes’ prodding. 
But the hooters themselves demand early attention. Courtship is at 
its height, and these aviating Romeos are staging a flying circus. Each, 
1218 
