oZZ Nichols, Limicoline Voices. [bet. 



The Woodcock has a well-known crepuscular song, which 

 accompanies the nuptial performance, periodic Night-hawk-like 

 "peents" on the ground, followed by rhythmical wing-twittering 

 as the bird mounts in spirals into the air, followed by series of 

 short, sweet descending whistles as it makes its earthward plunges. 

 The Woodcock and Spotted Sandpiper are the only species that 

 I know as breeders, and although probably most have something 

 analogous with song, I must leave it to other more fortunate ob- 

 servers to describe them.* 



Wilson's Snipe (Gallinago dclicaia). The Snipe, like the Wood- 

 cock, usually flushes at close range. It calls a harsh "scape," as 

 it goes off, and this note is frequently given or repeated by it when 

 in full flight. Two birds moving east to west over the meadows 

 back of the beach at Mastic, Long Island, on the morning of 

 August 23, 1919, were calling in this manner as they stopped to 

 circle and then went on. As the bird goes out almost from under 

 foot, the "scape" is at times replaced by a series of short hurried 

 notes of similar character. Taken together these two notes are 

 analogous with the wing "twitter" of the W T oodcock. They are 

 homologous, on the other hand, with the Woodcock's nasal 

 "peent." 



It is interesting to find in the Wilson's Snipe this imperfect 

 differentiation of a note uttered at the moment of taking wing 

 from one uttered when in or approaching full flight, — as it is a 

 condition slightly different from the calls of other more social 

 Shore Birds which trust comparatively little to concealment, 

 take wing while danger is still at a distance with hurried minor 

 notes, so soft as to readily escape notice, and have each a loud 

 diagnostic flight-call of much service in their identification. 



The harsh "scape" of the Wilson's Snipe at one end of our 

 series, in keeping with the voices of unrelated marsh birds, frogs, 

 etc., and the discords of close-by marsh sounds continually in its 

 ears contrasts with the peculiarly clear mellow whistle of the 

 Black-breast at the other end, with carrying power over the open 

 distances of that plover's haunts. The connecting series, through 



*See numerous references to the songs of northern breeding species in the vol- 

 umes of 'The Auk.' 



