STOCK-DOVES, WOOD-PIGEONS, SNIPE 59 



into the darkness, unable to go, for one loves to see 

 that small, swift, vocal shadow appearing out of the 

 great, still, silent ones and disappearing, again, into 

 them. When thus disporting, each within its own 

 charmed circle, the downward rush and bleat of one 

 snipe will often for a long time immediately precede 

 or follow that of another, bleat answering to bleat, 

 till at length the duet is broken and complicated by 

 a third intermingling voice. At last a bird, trampling 

 on etiquette, will flit into the circle of the one you 

 are watching, and the two, excitedly pursuing each 

 other with " chack-wood, chack-wood," or, with the 

 harsh, wild scream and loud swish of pinions, will 

 speed off and vanish together. 



No doubt the male snipes bleat against each other 

 in rivalry, but it would also seem (a sentence, I confess, 

 which I never use when I have an undoubted instance 

 to give) that the male and female bleat to one another 

 connubially, or in a lover-like manner. Here, how- 

 ever, is an instance (as I translate it) of the one 

 bleating whilst the other sits listening and responding 

 vocally on the ground. 



" A snipe flies with a scream over the marshy 

 meadows. As he passes one little swampy bit another 

 snipe utters from out of it the see-sawey, 'chack- 

 wood ' note, in answer, as it appears, to the scream. 

 The first snipe now flies round about over the meadows 

 and land adjoining, bleating, whilst the other one in 

 the grass continues to see-saw." 



Many birds, as is well known, have the instinct, 

 when suddenly discovered with their young ones, of 

 tumbling over or fluttering along the ground as 

 though they had sustained some injury which had 



