186 WADING BIRDS. 



(Caprimulgns) ; but more resembles the sound produced by 

 quickly and interruptedly blowing into the neck of a large 

 bottle than the whirring of a spinning wheel. But, how- 

 ever difficult and awkward may be our attempts to convey 

 any adequate idea of this quailing murmur, it seems to be, 

 to its agent, an expression of tender feeling or amatory 

 reverie, as it is only uttered at the commencement, and dur- 

 ing the early part of the pairing season, while hovering 

 over those marshes or river meadows, which are to be the 

 cradle and domicil of their expected progeny, as they have 

 already been of themselves and their mates. This note is 

 probably produced by an undulatory motion of air in the 

 throat, while in the act of whirling flight ; and appears most 

 distinct as the Snipe descends towards the ground. How- 

 ever produced, the sound and its originators are commonly 

 so concealed by the fast closing shades of night, and the 

 elevation from whence it issues in cloudy weather, that the 

 whole seems shrouded in mystery. My aged maternal pa- 

 rent remembered, and could imitate with exactness this low 

 wailing murmur, which she had for so many years heard 

 over the marshes of my native Ribble, in the fine jevenings 

 of spring, when all nature seemed ready to do homage for 

 the bounties of the season ; and yet at the age of 70, the 

 riddle had not been expounded with satisfaction. 



Over the wide marshes of Fresh Pond, about the middle 

 of April, my attention was called to the same invisible 

 voice, which issued from the floating clouds of a dark eve- 

 ning ; the author was here called the Alewife Bird, from its 

 arrival with the shoals of that fish in the neighboring lake. 

 From the elevation at which the sound issued, probably, it 

 appeared less loud and distinct than that which I have since 

 heard from the English Snipe. I imagined then, that the 

 noise was made by the quick and undulatory fanning of 

 the winn-s, but this would not produce the shrillness of tone 



