THE SNIPE. 
185 
South America as far as Chili. Many winter in the marshes 
and inundated river-grounds of the Southern States of 
the Union, where they are seen in the month of February, 
frequenting springs and boggy thickets; others proceed 
along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and even penetrate 
into the equatorial regions. 
By the second week in March, they begin to revisit the 
marshes, meadows, and low grounds of the Middle States, 
and soon after they arrive in New England. In mild and 
cloudy weather, towards evening, and until the last rays of 
the setting sun have disappeared from the horizon, we hear, 
as in the north of Europe, the singular tremulous murmur- 
ings of the Snipes, making their gyratory rounds so high in 
the air as scarcely to be visible to the sight. This hum- 
ming, or rather flickering and somewhat wailing sound, 
has a great similarity to the booming of the night-hawk ; 
but more resembles the sound produced by quickly and 
interruptedly blowing into the neck of a large bottle than 
the whirring of a spinning-wheel. 
But, however difficult and awkward may be our attempts 
to convey any adequate idea of this quailing murmur, it 
seems to be, to its agent, an expression of tender feeling or 
amatory revery, as it is only uttered at the commencement, 
and during the early part of the pairing season, while 
hovering over those marshes or river-meadows, which are 
to be the cradle and domicil of their expected progeny, as 
they have already been of themselves and their mates. 
12 
