M. W. Meves on the Humming of the Snipe. 

 Fig. 4. Scolopax (Telmatias) javensis. 



305 



Fig. 5. Scolopax (Telmatias) major, L. 



Fig. 6. Scolopax (Philolimnos, Brehm) gallinula, L. 



The structure of the tail-feathers in the last-named species differs 

 considerably from that of the others ; it gives upon experiment no 

 humming sound ; and all the feathers of the tail are, as in Scolopax 

 rusticola, formed pretty much like one another. 



If it be considered desirable to divide the Linnsean genus Scolopax 

 into subgenera, I should propose to class those together which have 

 musical feathers in the tail, under the name Odura. 



The interesting discovery recorded in the above paper was first an- 

 nounced by M. Meves in an account of the birds observed by him- 

 self during a visit to the island of Gottland in the summer of the 

 year 1856, which account appeared in a publication of the Vetens- 

 kaps Akademi at Stockholm the following winter. 



In the succeeding summer M. Meves kindly showed me his expe- 

 riments. The mysterious noise of the wilderness was reproduced in 

 a little room in the middle of Stockholm. First the deep bleat now 

 shown to proceed from the male Snipe, and then the fainter bleat 

 of the female, both most strikingly true to nature, neither producible 

 with any other feathers than the outer ones of the tail. 



I could not resist asking M. Meves the impertinent question, how, 

 issuing forth from the town for a summer ramble, he came to dis- 

 cover what all the field-naturalists and sportsmen of England and 

 other countries had, for the last century at least, been in vain trying 

 to make out, straining their eyes, and puzzling their wits ? He freely 

 explained to me how, in a number of ' Naumannia/ an accidental 

 misprint of the word representing tail-feathers instead of wing-fea- 



