Northern Observations of Inland Birds 249 



times looked straight at us as we conversed in low voices. 

 Two were evidently cock birds, the third a hen, and 

 having alighted the two cocks puffed out their feathers, 

 humped their backs, and with tails tremendously fanned 

 out and wings brushing the ground they proceeded to 

 circle round and round the female, who stood with her 

 head up merely getting out of their way. The cocks 

 did not tilt at each other — indeed they seemed entirely 

 oblivious to each other's presence, as to us, and it was 

 only when the female took alarm at our close proximity 

 that the strange performance ended. The hen flew off, 

 her two ardent admirers following, no doubt to repeat 

 the performance in another part of the swamp. 



During the nesting season, when the male snipe is 

 mounted guard in the heavens above his mate, I have more 

 than once noticed that the bird has a curious habit of 

 accompanying for a short distance and repeatedly encircling 

 any fast-moving vehicle. I noticed this specially during 

 the two or three seasons just prior to the war when the 

 car in my possession was a pure white one, and again 

 last summer when driving a vehicle of burnished aluminium 

 finish. It would seem, therefore, that the more con- 

 spicuous the vehicle the stronger is the attraction, and 

 while driving the white car I once or twice obtained 

 startHng evidence as to the speed of this bird. On one 

 dead straight moorland road we held a speedometer read- 

 ing of sixty-two miles per hour for considerably over a 

 mile and during this burst of speed a snipe was circling 

 easily round us, and not only circHng but rising and 

 falling, and apparently with no greater effort than when 

 the vehicle was travelling at between twenty and thirty 

 miles per hour. He must have been travelHng three 

 times as fast as we were, close upon one hundred and 

 ninety miles per hour, which is a tremendous and almost 

 unbelievable speed for a bird to hold in the ordinary 



