This is the bird commonly called the English snipe, and also frequently the Jack snipe. It has a very strong resemblance to the common snipe of Great Britain, to which circumstance it is probably indebted for one of its appellations. It is smaller, however, than its European congener, which, with other distinctive marks, have induced naturalists to consider it a different species. It is very rarely found in Europe.

Like the woodcock, it is a bird of passage, and found in the Middle and .Northern States only in the spring and fall, when they are frequently shot in great numbers. In the winter they frequent the rice-grounds of the south.

The history of this bird is somewhat obscure. We know not where it breeds, its manner of constructing its nest, the number of eggs it lays, or time of incubation. For although I have frequently shot them late in the season containing eggs with the shell nearly formed, I have never met with the young, or with any one who has, and have frequently heard it as a banter among sportsmen, Can you tell where the snipe breeds, or have you ever seen its young ? it is known, therefore, with us, only as a bird of passage. Wilson furnishes no information on these points of its history.

Its irregular and zigzag motion on rising from the ground, perplexes the young sportsman exceedingly, and frequently baffles his efforts, and has occasioned this bird to be considered as difficult to shoot; but the more experienced, aware of its habits, wait until it has attained its elevation; when its flight is steady and direct, and it then becomes a certain conquest During the periods of its migration, it is found in all our wet, low, open grounds, is rather a shy bird, and I am inclined to think may be hunted more successfully without than with a dog. It bears his approach with extreme restlessness, and to be of any use to his master he must be slow and cautious, and satisfied with a distant point. The woodcock, on the contrary, particularly in the early part of the season, will frequently rest under his nose. This difference may, however, be accounted for by a difference in choice of ground. Each likes it wet, but the snipe prefers the meadow with a short grass; the woodcock, on the contrary, seldom takes to meadows where the grass is not long and the cover close.