60 SEXUAL SELECTION: BIRDS. [Part II. 



same manner and soon appeared. Lastly, the male Hoopoe 

 ( Upupa epqps) combines vocal and instrumental music ; 

 for during the breeding-season this bird, as Mr. Swinhoe 

 saw first draws in air and then taps the end of its beak 

 perpendicularly down against a stone or the trunk of a 

 tree, " when the breath being forced down.the tubular bill 

 produces the correct sound." When the male utters its 

 cry without striking his beak, the sound is quite different." 

 In the foregoing: cases sounds are made by the aid of 

 structures already present and otherwise necessary ; but 

 in the following cases certain feathers have been specially 

 modified for the express purpose of producing the sounds. 

 The drumming, or bleating, or neighing, or thundering 

 noise, as expressed by different observers, which is made 

 by the common snipe {Scolopax galUnago) must have sur- 

 prised every one who has ever heard it. This bird, during 



Fig. 41.— Outer tail-feather of Scolopax gallinago (from Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858). 



the pairing-season, flies to " perhaps a thousand feet in 

 height," and, after zigzagging about for a time, descends 

 in a curved line, with outspread tail and quivering pinions, 



51 For the foregoing several facts see, en Birds of Paradise, Brehm, 

 ' Thierleben,' Band iii. s. 325. On Grouse, Richardson, 'Fauna Bor. 

 Americ. : Birds,' pp. 343, 359 ; Major W. # Ross King, ' The Sports- 

 man in Canada/ 1866, p. 156; Audubon, 'American Ornitholog. Biog- 

 raphy vol. i. p. 216. On the Kalij-pheasant, Jerdon, 'Birds of India,', 

 vol. iii. p. 533. On the Weavers, ' Livingstone's Expedition to the Zam- 

 besi,' 1865, p. 425. On Woodpeckers, Macgillivray, ' Hist, of British 

 Birds,' vol. iii. 1840, pp. 84, 88, 89, 95. On the Hoopoe, Mr. Swin- 

 hoe, in 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.' June 23, 1863. Oh the Night- Jar, Audubon, 

 ibid. vol. ii. p. 255. The English Night-Jar' likewise makes in the spring 

 a curious noise during its rapid flight. 



