
Snipe Breeding Ground Studies.--Leslie M. Tuck of the Canadian 
Wildlife Service has made rather intensive studies of breeding Common 
Snipe in Newfoundland. He has discovered a number of facts which are 
significant in appraisal of breeding habitat and in development of 
census techniques. Collectinn of birds under observation has shown that 
females will winnow under certain circumstances; that each member of a 
pair of snipe maintains a separate territory during the breeding season; 
that females do all the setting on eggs and that males help with the 
care of young by assuming the responsibility of caring for two of the 
four young, leaving the other two in the care of the female; that each 
parent takes the young in its care to its respective territory, 
Snipe’ Banding.--Banding of the Common Snipe on its wintering 
grounds was continued this year by Chandler Robbins in connection with 
his investigations of winter abundance of this species on the Guif 
coast. Leslie Tuck has adapted for snipe the technique of luring 
birds into mist nets by playing tape recordings of their territorial 
calls. The discovery that this is possible is an important advance 
in the techniques of banding. There is need for a considerable in- 
crease of emphasis on the banding of this migratory game bird - the 
migration pattern of which is virtually unknown. 
Rail Investigations.--We are pleased to be able to include in our 
summaries of work on migratory game birds this year some of the results 
of studies of Clapper Rails under a Federal Aid project in New Jersey. 
Fred Ferrigno's findings deal chiefly with the effect of storm tide 
conditions on the production of this species. Such conditions in 1955 
were so severe that it was feared the species had suffered greatly and 
the Federal hunting season was reduced accordingly, 
Brooke Meanley of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service published 
the results of a study on "Food habits of the King Rail in the Arkansas 
rice fields," (The Auk, 73:252-258, 1956). 

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? 
We have now reached a point where we have obtained enough infor- 
mation pertinent to the subject of management of woodcock, snipe and 
rails that we need to sit down and try to put the pieces together and 
see what we have. On the results of our findings we should plan 
further work, possibly with entirely new approaches, to progress most 
rapidly toward our goald accurately charting our courses of management. 
We must particularly reappraise our main approach to obtaining an annual 
population index of woodcock through singing ground counts in the breed- 
ing season. There is yet to be a test of this method using routes 
selected on a strictly randomized basis. There is need for further work 
on the proper weighting of population figures for both woodcock and 
snipe inventory methods. Much more consideration needs to be given to 
operating and testing wintering ground counts of woodcock. Means 
should be found for determining hunting pressure on all species. 
There should be more effort to determine effect of changing habitat 
and ways to measure it. Methods of aging woodcock:.and snipe in the 
fall must be developed. 
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