STOCK-DOVES, WOOD-PIGEONS, SNIPE 53 



cess of musical sexual selection. To quote Darwin : 

 " No one was able to explain the cause until Mr 

 Meves observed that on each side of the tail the 

 outer feathers are peculiarly formed, having a stiff 

 sabre-shaped shaft with the oblique barbs of unusual 

 length, the outer webs being strongly bound together. 

 He found that by blowing on these feathers, or by 

 fastening them to a long thin stick and waving them 

 rapidly through the air, he could reproduce the 

 drumming noise made by the living bird. Both 

 sexes are furnished with these feathers, but they are 

 generally larger in the male than in the female, and 

 emit a deeper note." 



The possibility of reproducing the sound in the 

 manner described seems conclusive as to the cause 

 of it. Otherwise I should have come to the con- 

 clusion, by watching the bird, that the wings and 

 not the tail were the agency employed. 



" I have just been watching for some time a snipe 

 continually coursing through the air and making, 

 at intervals, the well-known drumming or bleating 

 sound, bleating certainly seems to me the word 

 which best expresses its quality. The wings are 

 constantly and quickly quivered, not only when the 

 bird rises or flies straight forward, but also during 

 its swift oblique descents, when one might expect 

 that they would be held rigid in the ordinary manner. 

 From each sweep down the bird rises and beats 

 again upwards, but when the flight has been con- 

 tinued long enough the wings are pressed to the 

 sides as the plunge to earth is made, which is also 

 one way in which the lark descends. It is during 

 these downward flights but not during the descent 



