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THE AMERICAN SNIPE.
SCOLOFAX WlLSONII, TEMM.
P L A T E C C X L I I I . MALE, FEMALE, AND YOUNG IN AUTUMN.
THE summer range of the Common American Snipe extends northward
to a considerable distance beyond the limits of the United States.
During the breeding season it is not to be found in our Southern Districts,
much less does it breed on the borders of the Mississippi, as has
been alleged by some writers. It may indeed sometimes happen that a
pair is found during summer in the mountainous districts of the Carolinas;
but occurrences of this kind are rare, and are probably caused by
one of the birds being disabled, and so prevented from prosecuting its
journey farther northward, although not incapacitated for reproduction.
Some pairs are more frequently met with in Virginia, Maryland and
Pennsylvania, either with eggs or with young, but the great body of this
species goes farther* north for the purpose of breeding. In the State of
Maine, they become tolerably abundant at this season, and as you proceed
eastward you find them more numerous. In Nova Scotia they are
plentiful during summer, and there they breed in all convenient places.
In these northern districts, the Snipe begins to lay its eggs in the early
part of June. The swampy parts of the extensive moss-covered marshes
in elevated situations afford it places of security and comfort, in which it
is not likely to be disturbed by man, and finds immediately around it an
abundance of food. The nest itself is a mere hollow in the moss, scantily inlaid
with a few grasses. The eggs, which, like those of many of the Tringas,
are four, and placed with the small ends together, measure one inch and
five-eighths by one and one-eighth, being pyriform, with the tip somewhat
inflated. The ground colour is a yellowish-olive, pretty thickly
spotted and blotched with light and dark umber, the markings increasing
in size as they approach the large end, where they form a circle.
The young, like those of the Woodcock, leave the nests as soon as hatched,
and so resemble those of the Common Snipe of Europe, Scolopax Gallinago,
that the same description answers for both, they being covered
with down of different tints of brown and greyish-yellow. The bill is at
this age short, very soft and easily bent by the least pressure; nor does it
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acquire its full growth before winter, and its length differs in different
apparently full grown individuals, by half an inch or even three-fourths.
They seem to feed at first on minute insects collected on the surface
of the mires, or amid the grass and moss; but as they grow older, and
the bill becomes firmer and larger, they probe the ground like their
parents, and soon become expert at this operation, introducing the bill
at every half inch or so of the oozy mire, from which they principally
obtain their food. In the Middle States, this Snipe, however, has been
found breeding in meadows, as well as in the State of Maine ; and it also
nestles in the mountainous districts of these parts of the Union. I never
had the good fortune to meet with a nest in Pennsylvania, although I
have known several instances of a pair breeding not far from Mill Grove
on the Perkioming.
In the Western Country this bird arrives from the north early in October,
alighting in the low meadows watered by warm springs, and along
the borders of ponds and small secluded rivulets, sometimes in the corn
fields after a continuance of rainy weather, but never in the woods or any
place from which it cannot easily make its escape when approached. In
Kentucky it often remains all winter, and is at times very abundant.
Farther south, it is more plentiful, especially in the lower parts of Louisiana,
where it is named " cache cache''' by the Creoles, and over the
whole country between that State and the Carolinas. During winter, it
is not uncommon in Louisiana to meet with it in flocks of considerable
numbers, as is also the case in South Carolina, where the grounds of the
rice-planter afford it abundance of food. In some fields well known to
my Charleston friends, as winter retreats of the snipe, it is shot in great
numbers. At times it is so much less careful about concealing itself than
at others, that it is not at all uncommon to see it walking about over its
wet feeding-grounds, and on such occasions many are killed. In such
places I have found these birds by fifties and hundreds in fields of a few
acres. At the first shots, dozens in succession woidd take to wing, each
emitting its cry of wait-aik, after which they would rise in the air, gradually
collect, fly round a few times to the distance of some hundred
yards, and returning pitch towards the ground, and alight, with the velocity
of an arrow, not many yards from the spot where they had previously
been. In a few minutes they would all disperse, to seek for food. So
much are they at times attached to particular spots, that the sportsmen
continue to shoot them until their number is reduced to a fewr, which
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