PAIRING AND EARLY SONG 361 



pecker is often called — is very familiar in the spring woods, and 



begins to be heard in a complete form in February, if the season 



is early and open. It is a shout rather than a song; but it seems 



clearly to be a shout of gladness, and therefore closely akin to 



song in spirit and origin. Yet if we startle a woodpecker as 



it feeds on the ground under the winter hedgerows, it often 



utters a cry which is merely its spring laugh cut down to two 



or three notes, as it shoots up and undulates across the field. 



Snipe begin to drum in mild seasons in the south of 



England in the second or third week in February, when they 



pair and settle down in the marshy fields where they nest 



early in April. Their drumming or bleating note sounds 



extremely like the baa of a young lamb, and is even closer 



to the bleat of a kid. It is the snipe's equivalent for song, 



though it is not produced vocally, but by the vibration of 



the web of the two outer feathers of the tail. This is 



peculiarly stiff, and produces the bleating note whenever the 



snipe drops slanting downwards in the course of its long 



flights over the nesting-ground. It winds swiftly about the 



sky within a space of about a quarter of a mile, and every 



few moments drops obliquely downwards, when the bleating 



note is almost immediately heard. It ceases as soon as the 



bird reaches the bottom of its descent, and again shoots up. 



The sound has been reproduced by binding the snipe's outer 



tail-feathers to the shaft of an arrow, and shooting it into the 



air; the sound began when it descended. It is remarkable 



that while some American and African species of snipe drum 



in the same way as the common snipe, great or double snipe 



do not drum, but display before the hens much like the 



blackcock. The jack snipe has yet another method of 



nuptial expression. It makes in the air a sound described as 



being like the galloping of a horse over a hard road ; and it is 



thought that this is vocal though the point is still undetermined. 

 0.wai 4 6 



