WILSON SNIPE. Gallinago delicata (Ord)

Field characters.—A 'wader' of about size of Robin; bill slender and very long (2-1/2 inches). Head and back longitudinally streaked with black and buff; belly white; breast mottled with buffy drab and dark brown. Of retiring habits and usually solitary. Flight, when flushed, quick and erratic. Voice: A rasping scaipe, scaipe.

Occurrence.—Transient (and probably also a summer visitant) in vicinity of Mono Lake; winter visitant near Snelling. Frequents moist grasslands, and margins of ponds and irrigation ditches.

Our field workers observed the Wilson Snipe in winter only at Snelling (January 7 and 8, 1915) and Lagrange (December 20, 1915), and in summer only in the marshes near Mono Lake (May 21, 1916). In no instance were more than two birds seen at one time, and these only as they were flushed from the shelter of the grass.

A juvenile male obtained near Williams Butte on September 22, 1915, still had some of the natal down clinging to the plumage of the thighs.