30 A Book of the Snipe. 



The troubles of the mother snipe are 

 short. Finding her mate at the earhest in 

 mid-February, or at latest in the first week 

 of April, her eggs are laid soon after the 

 middle of March or before the middle of 

 May. Five weeks later they are broken 

 by the chicks, which, like modern politicians, 

 spring from the shell able to do everything 

 just as well as their parents, except to fly. 



During the period of courtship the birds, 

 both cock and hen, begin to make a sound 

 so different from their ordinary shrill cry that 

 any one hearing it for the first time is apt 

 to be as startled and as incredulous as to its 

 origin as he would be were he to hear some 

 famous operatic prima-donna suddenly open 

 the song of Elsa in "Lohengrin" in a deep 

 bass ! Naturalists have long been puzzled 

 both as to the cause and how best to describe 

 this strange sound which rings through the 

 air above the marshes in the early spring 

 days — a sound so loud, so unlocatable, and so 

 bizarre that it seems impossible that it can 

 have been uttered by a bird one-twelfth the 



