470 BIRDS—SCOLOPACID&. 
bers, especially in spring. It frequents low open places, such as wet 
meadows and marshes, and muddy banks of streams. 
They are found in small companies of from three to twelve, technically 
called ‘‘ wisps.” Solitary birds are not unfrequently met with. 
No other game birds, are more erratic and eccentric than these. 
They are extremely fickle in the choice of their feeding ground; 
one day they may swarm in a certain locality, and the next none 
are to be discovered. Their flight is strong, but, especially at the 
beginning, erratic. They almost invariably fly against the wind, and 
lie closest on clear still days. Occasionally they alight on trees or 
fences. Their note, uttered as they rise, resembles the word “ escape.” 
The nest of the Snipe, as of all others of this family so far as known, 
is placed on the ground. The eggs, three or four in number, measure 
about 1.55 by 1.10. They are grayish-olive blotched with dark-brown, 
sometimes with lines of blackish. 
GENUS MACRORHAMPHUS. Leach. 
Bill asin Gallinago; legs long; tibia bare upwards of three-quarters of an inch ; tar- 
sus longer than the middle toe and claw; outer and middle toes connected by an evi- 
dent membrane; tail feathers 12. 
MACRORHAMPHUS GRISEUS (Gm.) Leach. 
IrRed-breasted Snipe. 
Scolopax grisea, KIRTLAND, Ohio Geolog. Surv., 1838, 165. 
Macrorhampus (error) griseus, WHEATON, Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1869, 1861, 368, 480; Re- 
print, 10; Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 1875, 572; Reprint, 12. 
Macrorhamphus griseus, LANGDON, Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 14; Revised List, Journ. Cin. 
Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 162; Reprint, 16. 
Macrorhampus (error) griseus, var. scolopaceus, WHEATON, Food of Birds, ete., Ohio Agric. 
Rep. for 1874, 1875, 572 ; Reprint, 12. 
Scolopax grisea, GMELIN, Syst. Nat. i, 1788, 658. 
Macrorhamphus griseus, LEACH, Cat. Brit. Mus., 1816, 31. 
Tail and its coverts, at all seasons, conspicuously barred with black and white (or 
tawny), lining“of wings and axillars the same; quills dusky, shaft of first primary, and 
tips of the secondaries, except long inner ones, white; bill and feet greenish-black. 
In summer, brewnish-black above, variegated with bay ; below brownish-red, varie- 
gated with dusky; a tawny superciliary stripe, and a dark one from the bill to the 
eye. In winter plain gray above, and on the breast, with few or no traces of black and 
bay, the belly, line over eye and under eyelid white. Length, 10-11; wing, 5-5}; tail, 
23; bill, about 24; tarsus, 14; middle toe and claw, 14. A variety of this bird (2. 
scolopaceus, Lawrence) is almost a foot long, the bill upward of three inches. 
Habitat, the whole of North America. Greenland. Mexico. West Indies. Central 
America. Much of South America. Brazil. Breeds in high latitudes. Chiefly migra- 
tory in the United States. Winters in the South, and beyond, as above. Of frequent 
occurrence in Europe. 
