250 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



course of flight. Yet anyone who has watched one of these 

 birds manoeuvring in the heavens, performing a gigantic 

 oval sweep, now overhead, now the merest speck on 

 the other side of the moor, knows that twenty seconds is 

 quite long enough for him to travel almost to the limits 

 of one's vision. 



When I was motoring one day with a friend in the 

 West Riding a snipe, accompanying the car in the manner 

 described, collided during a nose dive with the telegraph 

 wires about fifty yards ahead of the car. It came to 

 earth with tremendous force, and picking it up we found 

 it to be a shattered pulp. Almost every bone in its 

 body was broken, and the delicate bill was all but carried 

 clean away. 



The habitat of the snipe is certainly worth a visit 

 during the nesting season — that is, any time between 

 mid-April and July, for one is certain to see the male 

 snipe in the heavens, or, indeed, as many males as there 

 are females sitting their eggs below. It would seem that 

 the males are on sentry go day and night at this season, 

 while added to their strange notes is the mournful iteration 

 of the redshank's love song, the melancholy whistle of 

 golden plovers, the "tee-witt " of a lapwing or two tumbling 

 in zig-zag flight over the rushes, and the strident, siren- 

 like bubblings and pipings of the curlews. All these 

 birds are calling as at no other season. Each has its 

 respective love song, each is conducting itself as at no 

 other time. 



The love song of the snipe is the bedrock of simplicity, 

 and consists of two notes, which to my ear are best 

 transcribed as ** chipp-churr." Few sounds have been 

 so variously transcribed by diflPerent writers, however, 

 and Pralle puts the combination of letters as " Gick- 

 Jack " to describe it. Yet Woolley " keet-koot,'* and 

 Thompson ** tinker-tinker." To my mind nothing could 



