96 SPOTTED SANDPIPER. has probed for earthworms with his long, sensitive bill, the upper mandible of which, as Mr, Gordon Trumbull has discovered, the bird can use as a finger. The Woodcock's nest is made of dried leaves, and the four large, pear-shaped eggs are buff, spotted with shades of reddish brown. The young are born covered with rich chestnut and buff down, and can run as soon as dry. As a songster the Woodcock is unique among our summer birds. Ordinarily sedate and dignified, even pompous in his demeanor, in the spring he falls a victim to the passion which is accountable for so many strange customs in the bird world. If some April evening you visit the Woodcock's haunts at sunset, you may hear a loud, nasal note repeated at short mtervuh—peejit, peent. It resembles the call of a Nighthawk, but is the Woodcock sounding the first notes of his love song. He is on the ground, and as you listen, the call ceases and the bird springs from the ground to mount skyward on whistling wings. He may rise three hundred feet, then, after a second's pause, one hears a twittering whistle and the bird shoots down steep inclines earthward. Unless disturbed, he will probably return to near the spot from which he started and at once resume his peenting. This, with the twittering note, is vocal ; the whistling sound, heard as the bird rises, is produced l)y the rapid passage of air through its stif- fened primaries. Our only other common summer resident Snipe is the Spotted Sandpiper. It frequents the shores of lakes. Spotted Sandpiper, P^nds, and rivers, and is also found Actitis mncuiaria. near the sea, but wherever seen may be Plate XI. known by its singular tipping, teter- ing motion, which has given it the names of Tip-up and Teter Snipe. It is also called Peet-weet, from its sharp
