“A most excellent bird they are, too—fat and delicate. They are the latest of the bay-snipe in returning from the summer breeding-places; and as they rise and fly from you, they afford extremely pretty shooting. They are sometimes called short-neck, and are, in a gastronomic point of view, the best bay-snipe that is put upon the table.”
“We call the bay-birds usually snipe,” said the first speaker; “but I have been told they are not snipe at all. Refer to Giraud again and give us the truth.”
This fell, of course, to my share, and I commenced as follows:
“I read you yesterday about the plovers, and immediately after them we find an account of the turnstone, strepsilas interpres, which is nothing else than our beautiful brant-bird or horse-foot snipe, as it is called farther south, because it feeds on the spawn of the horse-foot. This pretty but unfortunate bird belongs to no genus whatever, and has been to the ornithologists a source of great tribulation. They have sometimes considered it a sandpiper and sometimes not, so you may probably call it what you please; and as brant-bird is a rhythmical name, it will answer as well as strepsilas interpres; if you have not a fluent tongue, perhaps somewhat better. Of the snipes, or scolopacidæ, the only true representative is the dowitcher, scolopax noveboracensis.
“Hold on,” shouted Bill; “say that last word over again.”
“Noveboracensis.”
“That is only the half of it; let’s have the whole.”
“Scolopax noveboracensis.”
“Scoly packs never borrow a census; that is a good sized name for a little dowitch, and beats the radish altogether. Go ahead, we’ll learn something before we get through.”