8o Snipe 'drumming' 



and foliage ; a cloudless sun is rising in the sky ; a distant clock is 

 striking five, as you pass off the uplands and pause at a gate that 

 leads into the rich expanse of fiat marshes, which is your goal. 



The air is full of musical sounds — two or three pairs of Lapwings 

 are swooping close round your head, calling ^•ociferously. These 

 birds have their nests on the higher ground, which you have just 

 left, and they are anxious to see you further removed from their 

 home. So long as you remain within the danger zone, they will 

 continue to flap round you with their wailing cr\-, and use every 

 artifice they know of to decoy you further and further away. A 

 Ringed-Plover has her eggs on this same rough upland, and the male 

 joins with the Peewits in the combined effort to drive you out of 

 their compound, flying uneasily to and fro, uttering his shrill piping 

 whistle. 



Above the lap of the waves on the shingly beach close b\', you 

 can hear the occasional harsh scream of a Lesser Tern, as he fishes 

 along the shore for the small fry which are to form his breakfast. 



A pair of Redshanks, warned by the clamour of the Plover, 

 spring from a distant part of the marsh and make straight for the 

 supposed danger. They, too, circle rouTid your head, scolding and 

 crying uneasily, urttil the whole marsh is echoing with their complaints. 

 They are perhaps hardly as bold as the Peewits in their approach, 

 and after much noisy inspection, appear to be more or less satisfied 

 with your intentions, and depart, still loudly protesting. One vou 

 lose sight of in the distance ; but the other, still doubtful, settles on a 

 gate post not far away, as if to the manner born. Here he stops 

 on sentry go, uttering from time to time his resonant cry, and nodding 

 backwards and forwards with sharp, jerk\' bows. 



Wagtails, as yellow as the kingcups among which they are 

 flirting, are everywhere around you : Sedge-warblers are chattering 

 in every clump of sedge or reed. I^arks are trilling abov'e your 

 head, and Cuckoos calling in the neighbouring belts. 



And there is yet one other musical sound which you hear — 

 to my ear, the sweetest of them all — the drumming of the Snipe. 



Half-a-mile away, on this still morning, as you came over the 

 hill, you heard a faint dithering buzz, like a droning bumble-bee, 

 and wondered what it was ; but here, on the fringe of the marsh, 

 the sound has grown in volume, and you can now see from whence 

 it proceeds. At no great distance, high in the air, flies a Snipe. 

 He has just finished a downward stoop, and it was the drumming 

 of that particular stoop that attracted your eye to him. 



He is now soaring up again : then with a sudden change, he 

 turns his course, and plunges headlong towards the earth, his wings 

 half closed, his tail fully expanded, his bod\' rigid and tense, every 

 fibre strained to the course that is set before him. 



The plunge is not vertical, but at an angle of 45°, or something 

 less ; and even then it is not in a hard, straight line, but follows a 

 graceful ciu've. 



