om the Wild Geese as they fly north. I tell you it is fine
to be down here then. But in fall I'd rather be up at the lake by the
lumber camp when the snow brings the foxes and other wild animals out."

"Do stop a minute, please, Olaf, and don't tell quite so fast," pleaded
Dodo. "Uncle Roy never does. You have said the names of ever so many
birds that we don't know, and when he does that he always stops and
explains. Snipe and Spotted Sandpipers--please begin with those."

Olaf thought for a minute. He knew all the game and water birds--in
fact, they were intimate friends of his; but it was not so easy for him
to describe them.

"Did you ever see a Woodcock?" he began.

"Yes, oh yes!" cried Nat. "Uncle Roy showed us a stuffed one in the
wonder room, and told us all about its long beak with a point like a
finger to feel for its food in the mud because its eyes are too far back
to see well in front, and all about its sky dance; and Rap has seen one
sitting on its nest in a spring snowstorm."

"Well, the Snipe that comes about here belongs to the same family, and
also pokes in the mud for its food; that is why it likes to live near
fresh water like the Woodcock, where the mud is soft, rather than on the
sea-shore, where the sand is gritty. It's a mighty shy bird and doesn't
tell any one what it means to do. I've heard them come calling over the
beach at night sometimes though, and I suspect they go to the muddy
side of the bar to feed, but I've never seen them there. They mostly do
their coming and going at night--and fly high too, even then.

"Sandpipers don't bore in the ground for their food, but just pick it
up; so they keep along the shore of either fresh or salt water, some
kinds choosing one place and some another. The Spotted Sandpiper is
another of the little fellows who sometimes nests back in those meadows.
He is not a bit shy, but runs about as tame as a Robin, and he isn't as
big as a Robin either. Sometimes they lay their eggs in the meadow and
sometimes among the tuft-grass back of the beach. They lay four eggs,
very big at one end and peaked at the other, and put them in the nest
with the pointed ends together in the middle, to take up less room; and
they're sandy-colored, spotted all over. They hang about here all
summer. We call them 'teeters' because they always tip up their tails
and bob so when they run. They whistle like this, 'tweet-weet--tweet-weet!'

[Illustration: Wilson's Snipe.]

"There'