Willets breed in great numbers along the shores of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, and afford the sportsman an easy prey and excellent eating. The experienced gunners always select the young birds, which are recognized by the grayness of their plumage, in preference to the older and darker birds, which are not so tender and well flavored. In the month of October they generally pass on to their winter-quarters in the warmer parts of the continent. Their food consists chiefly of small shell-fish, aquatic insects, their larvæ and mollusca, searching for which they may be found on the muddy shores and estuaries at low water. The Willet is peculiarly an American bird, its appearance in the north of Europe being merely accidental, as is also that of the Ruff in America. The Willets wade more than most of their tribe, and when disabled by a wound they take to the water without hesitation, and swim with apparent ease. The length of the Willet is about fifteen and a half inches; length of the bill to the rictus two and a half inches, much shorter in the young bird of the season; tarsus two inches eight lines. In the summer plumage, according to Nuttall, the general color above is brownish gray, striped faintly on the neck, more conspicuously on the head and back, with blackish brown; the scapulars, tertiaries and their coverts irregularly barred with the same; tail coverts white, tail even, whitish, thickly mottled with pale ashy brown, that color forming the ground of the central feathers, which are barred with dusky brown toward their extremities; spurious wing, primary coverts, a great portion of the anterior extremities of the primaries, the axillary feathers, and under-wing coverts black, with a shade of brown; the remaining lower and longer portion of the primaries, and the upper row of under-wing coverts white; the posterior primaries tipt with the same; secondaries and the outer webs of their greater coverts white, marbled with dusky; wings rather longer than the tail, the lower with a spotted liver-brown streak, bounded above by a spotted white one; eyelids, chin, belly and vent white; the rest of the under plumage brownish white, streaked on the throat and transversely barred, or waved on the breast, shoulders, flanks, and under tail coverts with clove-brown, the bars pointed in the middle. Female colored like male, but an inch longer. Legs and feet dark lead color, the soles inclining to olive, the toes broadly margined with a sort of continuation of the web; iris hazel. Winter dress with fainter spots on the upper plumage, and without the dark waving transverse bars below, only the fore part of the neck and breast of a cinereous tint, marked with small brown streaks. * * * * * VISITANTS FROM SPIRIT-LAND. BY E. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.