38 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
much mistaken—that the noise a snipe makes when 
drumming or booming is made with his wings. 
“In the same letter Mr. Austen writes: ‘All the 
sound that I have ever heard in the daytime has been 
their scaipe, except that on August 11, 1885, when 
shooting on the marsh, I heard about and around me 
who, who, who, only not in very loud tones, and for 
quite a while was puzzled, until I found running about 
me at my feet’ three tiny young snipe, which must have 
been a very late, or, possibly second, brood.’ If Mr. 
Austen will go out where:these snipe breed, during the 
mating season—that is, with us, in the month of May 
—he will find that snipe sing, twitter and call. During 
this season, snipe call one another pete, pete, pete. The 
cock bird springs into the air, flying twenty or thirty 
yards before lighting again, with his tail and head up, 
singing, and twittering much like a bobolink. One 
could hardly think that these tame, foolish birds were 
the wild, swift-flying, hard-to-hit birds of the previous 
month. 
“The snipe and woodcock both drum with their 
wings. Woodcock drum about dusk, letting themselves 
down from an elevated position plump on to the ground, 
with wings set edgewise. Snipe generally drum on 
dark and dull days, letting themselves down from a 
high position with wings set edgewise, fifty or a hun- 
dred feet, immediately soaring up again to circle around 
as before. This they repeat for hours together. Years 
ago, when snipe were plentiful in the Holland marshes, 
a few miles from here, I have seen upon a dull day 
