He is a curious little chap, the Solitary Snipe, and we used to call him Tip-up. He delights to “see-saw” and “teeter” down a clay bank, with a tiny “peep-po,” “peep-po,” just before he pokes in his long, slender bill for food.

He is very tough, and possesses as many lives as the proverbial cat. I have taken many a shot at him—fine sand-shot at that—and from a gun with a record for scattering, and I never succeeded in knocking over but one Tip-up while on a hunt for taxidermy specimens. I failed to secure even this one, though he flopped over in the water and floated down upon the surface of the shallows toward where I stood, knee-deep awaiting his coming. He was as dead as any bird should have been after such a peppering; yes, he was my prize at last, or so I thought as I reached out my hand to lift his limp-looking little body from the water. He was only playing possum after all. With a whirl of his wings and a shrill “peep-po,” “peep-po,” he darted away and disappeared up stream and out of sight beyond the alders. To add to my disappointment a red-headed woodpecker began to pound out a tantalizing tune upon the limb of a dead hemlock. No sand-shot could reach that fellow, desire him as much as I might. Then a bold kingfisher, with a shrill, saucy scream, darted down before me, grabbed a dace and sailed to a branch opposite to enjoy his feast, well knowing, the rascal! that I had an unloaded gun and had fired my last shell. How he knew this I am not able to say, but he did. Wiser fellows in bird lore than I may be able to explain this. I cannot.

The Solitary Sandpiper is well named. He is always at home wherever found, and always travels alone, be it upon the shelving rock-banks of a river or the clay-banks of a rural stream. He possesses, after a fashion, the gift of the chameleon and can moderately change the color of his coat, or feathers, rather. When he “teeters” along a blue clay bank he looks blue, and when he “see-saws” along brown or gray rocks he looks gray or brown, as the case may be.

The city boy who spends his vacation in the rural parts and fishes for dace, redfins or sunfish, knows the Solitary Sandpiper. To the country boy he is an old acquaintance, for he has taken many a shot, with stone or stick, at the spry little Tip-up, who never fails to escape scot free to “peep-po,” “peep-po” at his sweet content.

H. S. Keller.