Читать книгу Birds and Nature Vol. 9 No. 2 [February 1901] - Various - Страница 6

The range of the Dowitcher is limited to the eastern part of North America. It has been reported as far west as the Mississippi river. It breeds in the far north, usually within the Arctic Circle. Its migration is extensive for it winters in Florida, the West Indies and in the northern portion of South America.

The Dowitcher is one of the best known of our coast birds. It bears many popular names, such as Gray Snipe, Gray-back, Dowitch, Driver, Brown-back and Bay Bird. The generic name Macrorhamphus is derived from two Greek words, makros, meaning large, and rhamphos, meaning bill. The specific name griseus means gray, and probably has reference to the grayish color of the winter plumage.

The Dowitchers are the most numerous of the seaside snipes. Inland it is replaced by the Long-billed Dowitcher (Macrorhamphus scolopaceus), which has a longer bill and is a little larger. Mr. Wilson, in his Ornithology, gives the following interesting account of their habits: “They frequent the sandbars and mud of flats at low water in search of food and, being less suspicious of a boat than of a person on shore, they are easily approached by this medium and shot down in great numbers. I have frequently amused myself with the various actions of these birds. They fly rapidly, sometimes wheeling, coursing and doubling along the surface of the marshes; then shooting high in the air, there separating and forming in various bodies, uttering a kind of quivering whistle.” At the retreat of the tide flocks will frequently settle on the shore in such large numbers and so close together that several dozen have been killed at a single shot.

Mr. Chapman tells us that “they migrate in compact flocks, which are easily attracted to decoys by an imitation of their call. Mud-flats and bars exposed by the falling tide are their chosen feeding grounds. On the Gulf coast of Florida I have seen several hundred gathered in such close rank that they entirely concealed the sandbar on which they were resting.”

In summer the general color of these birds is dark-brown and the feathers are more or less edged with a reddish tinge. Underneath, the general color is light cinnamon, with white on the belly. In the winter the plumage is more gray and the under parts are much lighter in color.

This bird usually lays four eggs of a buffy olive color, which are marked by brown, especially near the larger end.