There is no JACK SNIPE in America, though many persons ignorantly and obstinately assert the reverse; the true Jack Snipe being a northern bird of Europe and Asia, visiting the milder climates during the hard weather. It is an exact counterpart of the English Snipe, only about one-half smaller; it never utters any cry on rising, and rarely flies above one hundred yards, often dropping within fifty feet of the muzzle of a gun just discharged at it, although unwounded. The bird which is here confounded with it, is the PECTORAL SANDPIPER, a bird about one-third smaller than the snipe, of a lighter brown, with a short, arched bill, and a feeble, quavering whistle. It is found indiscriminately on the sea-shore, and in upland marshes; I have shot it from Lake Huron to the Penobscot, and the Capes of the Delaware; it lies well before dogs, which will point it, and is a good bird on the table. It is known in Long Island as the “Meadow Snipe” and the “Short Neck,” in New Jersey, and thence westward, as the “Fat Bird,” or “Jack Snipe” indiscriminately. It is not a snipe at all, but a Sandpiper, _Tringa Pectoralis_. The only other true snipe ascertained to exist in America, is the RED BREASTED SNIPE, _Scolopax Noveboracensis_, better known as the “DOWITCHER,” an unmeaning name, adopted and persevered in by the Baymen, or as the “Quail Snipe.” At Egg Harbor the gunners call it the “Brown-back.” It is found only on the salt marshes, and is never hunted with dogs but shot from ambush over decoys. It appears, then, that the coming and stay of the common snipe in our districts, in spring, is very uncertain, and dependent on the state and steadiness of the weather. Some seasons, they will stay for weeks on the moist, muddy flats among the young and succulent herbage, growing fat and lazy, lying well to the dog, and affording great sport. Sometimes they will merely alight, feed, rest, and resume their flight, never giving the sportsman a chance even of knowing that they have been, and are gone, except by their chalkings and borings where they have fed. Again, at other seasons, they will lie singly, or in scattered whisps on the uplands, in fallow fields, even among stunted brushwood, lurking _perdu_ all day, and resorting to the marshes by night, leaving the traces of their presence in multitudes, to perplex the sportsman, who, perhaps, beats the ground for them, day after day, only to find that they were, but are not.