
Bruce S. Wright of the Wildlife Management Institute (in lit.) 
is continuing study of midsummer habitat and banding of juvenal 
woodcock on their breeding grounds in New Brunswick by use of a bird 
dog. Up to the present 185 woodcock have been banded on his area. 
Efforts to get an adequate number of woodcock banded received an 
important assist by the adaptation of the "shore bird trap't with lead 
fences for capturing these "upland shore birds" (see Liscinsky, S. A. 
and Bailey, We Je Jr., Journ, Wildlife Man. 19(3):405-08, 1955). 
Thus another use has been found for this versatile trap originally 
designed by Low (Bird Banding, 6:16-22, 1935) and more recently used 
very effectively for Clapper Rails by Stewart (Trans. 16th N. A. 
Wildlife Conf., 4211130, 1951). 
Research on a method of obtaining an index to Wilson's Snipe 
abundance on the wintering grounds was continued by Robbins and 
described in his paper beyond. There were two innovations in his 
approach to this problem. He made a random selection of new routes 
and compared results with those obtained on routes selected by other 
methods. He also reported interesting attempts to count snipe from 
low-flying aircraft along definite flight lines. 
Word from Leslie Tuck of the Canadian Wildlife Service in New- 
foundland indicates that he is making progress with analysis of the 
twinnowing" count index for breeding ground estimation of snipe 
abundance,and that he is experimenting with luring snipe into mist nets 
for banding by use of sound recordings. It is hoped that this pioneering 
work will be continued to even a greater extent in 1956 and that some 
of the results can be reported soon, 
There is a practical value to management of migratory game birds 
if geographic variations occur which makes possible the separation of 
examples of different breeding populations tnat may be examined in 
hunters! bags. Although less exact than information obtained fron 
banded birds, it at least gives a general idea of the regions where 
hunted populations breed and the relative proportions of these popula- 
tions which are killed. With this in view the writer is studying 
geographic variation in migratory game birds. Preliminary results of 
examination of the Common Snipe, Capella gallinago in the National col- 
lections, together with many borrowed from museums in North America and 
Europe, indicate the extent of geographic variation, most of which has . 
been adequately described in the literature. 
Old thorld specimenssof the common snipe in general differ from New 
World populations, which we call Wilson's Snipe; primarily in having 
' narrower black bars on the long axillary feathers under the wings. The 
distinction in this character is the only one which would separate all 
New World from alI 61d World populations. Within the Eurasian popula- 
tions there is a variation from the moderately pale coloration which 
