88 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



sunk into the earth. I observed that some, wheo 

 finally seared from this island, flew off rising quite 

 high, one a few rods behind the other, in their peculiar 

 zigzag manner, rambling about high over the meadow, 

 making it uncertain where they would settle, till at 

 length I lost sight of one and saw the other drop 

 down almost perpendicularly into the meadow, as it 

 appeared. 



March 29, 1858. At the first pool I also scared up a 

 snipe. It rises with a single cra-a-ck and goes off with 

 its zigzag flight, with its bill presented to the earth, 

 ready to charge bayonets against the inhabitants of the 

 mud. 



April 9, 1858. I hear the booming of snipe this 

 evening, and Sophia * says she heard them on the 6th. 

 The meadows having been bare so long, they may have 

 begun yet earlier. Persons walking up or down our 

 village street in still evenings at this season hear this 

 singular winnowing sound in the sky over the meadows 

 and know not what it is. This " dooming " of the snipe 

 is our regular village serenade. I heard it this evening 

 for the first time, as I sat in the house, through the 

 window. Yet common and annual and remarkable as it 

 is, not one in a hundred of the villagers hears it, and 

 hardly so many know what it is. Yet the majority 

 know of the Germanians who have only been here 

 once. Mr. Hoar was almost the only inhabitant of this 

 street whom I had heard speak of this note, which he 

 used annually to hear and listen for in his sundown or 

 evening walks. 



^ [His sister.] 



