VOL. VII.] LETTERS. 29 



the air, volplaning dowTi, " drumming " loudly, and continuing the sport 

 after it is far too dark to see the fowl that are flighting over. Some- 

 times quite a number have been *' drumming " together, and as they 

 were plainly in view it is impossible to have been mistaken. On at 

 least two recent dates I have seen the Snipe on the wing and heard it 

 "drumming" during the day, but the performance has not been 

 continued longer than a few minutes, whereas the duration of the 

 " drumming ' ' at dusk has been upwards of half an hour. The fore- 

 going supports Captain Lynes's view that the Snipe " drums" within 

 the area of its breeding-range. It would be interesting to know 

 whether the Snipe I have heard were locally-bred birds or not. 

 Marking-rings have been placed on a good many young Snipe in this 

 district, but as yet none of the birds have been recovered. 



Heworth, York, Maij 20th, 1913. Sydney H. Smith. 



THE SINGING OF BIRDS ON MIGRATION. 



To the Editors of British Birds. 



Sirs, — ^In his paper on the " Drumming of the Snipe" (Vol. VI., 

 pp. 354-9), Captain Lynes throws much light on a very interesting 

 question. But I cannot accept without qualification what he says 

 with regard to the allied subject of the singing of birds on migration. 

 My own experience is that some birds do sing on migration. It is true 

 that in an island like Heligoland — a small bare expanse of cultivated 

 plots diversified with disappearing big guns — the Nightingale never 

 sings. Gatke always regretted that he had never heard it. But when 

 a migrant finds himself in a comfortable resting-place suggestive of the 

 land that he is bound for. then he will sometimes burst into song. 

 In Malta one Sunday in April, when half the population had turned 

 out to shoot Quails, among the popping of guns I heard the song 

 of a Nightingale coming loud and strong from a low bushy tree. 

 Mr. C. A. Wright ("Birds observed in Malta and Gozo," Ibis, 1864) 

 often " listened to its thrilling notes." Another April I heard a 

 Nightingale singing with great spirit in the island of Delos. There was 

 much better shelter for him than he could have foimd in Heligoland, 

 to wit, an enormous mallow ; but it seems unlikely that he was thinking 

 of nesting in so bare an island. At Ismailia I heard two Nightingales 

 singing in the public garden one April morning : the bubbling notes 

 were given with vigour though the long notes were omitted. The 

 head gardener, a Frenchman of some education, told me that the 

 Nightingales never stayed to nest. Besides the Nightingale I heard 



