58 BIRD WATCHING 



necessity ; but, according to my own experience, it 

 requires a nice ear to distinguish the bleating of the 

 one sex from that of the other. There is, indeed, some 

 slight difference in the sound made by each individual 

 snipe, but I only once remember hearing one bleating 

 with a markedly different tone. Here the sound had 

 a lower, softer, and deeper intonation, and was, to my 

 mind, a more musical sound altogether. When heard 

 just before or after the bleat of another snipe the 

 difference was very marked, but I considered it to 

 be rather an individual than a sexual distinction, 

 for I do not know that there is any reason to suppose 

 that the female snipe bleats less frequently than the 

 male except when she is sitting on her eggs. 



Snipe, when bleating, fly round and round in a wide 

 irregular circle, and for a long time one will not over- 

 step the invisible boundary so as to encroach upon the 

 domain of the other. It seems — but the illusion will 

 be broken after a time — as though each bird had his 

 allotment in the fields of air and knew that he would 

 be guilty of a rudeness in entering that of another. 

 Thus, though three or four of them may be flying 

 and bleating in the neighbourhood, it is often difficult 

 to watch more than one at a time with anything 

 like closeness of observation, a difficulty which is 

 often increased by the failing light ; for, in my own 

 experience, snipe bleat best either in the early — 

 though not very early — morning, or when evening 

 has begun to close in. To follow their wide, swift, 

 eccentric circle of flight one must keep turning round 

 on a fixed point, and this, amidst swamp and grass- 

 tufts, is difficult to do without losing one's balance. 

 Yet still one watches and turns and strains one's eyes 



