316 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



authority in such matters, assures me he once heard 

 a snipe drumming in the depth of winter, and on draw- 

 ing the attention of his marshman, William Hewitt, to 

 what he then considered a very strange occurrence, 

 the old man assured him that he had remarked the 

 same thing on several occasions, and that he regarded 

 it as a sign of stormy weather ; which in that instance 

 proved correct. I think there can be no doubt that 

 this is a purely " amatory signal," but just as some 

 birds sing in autumn or winter, so cock snipes will, no 

 doubt, at other than breeding times. 



There had been various attempts to account for the 

 way in which the neighing or drumming was produced, 

 but no one succeeded in doing so satisfactorily until Mr. 

 W. Meves, the conservator of the Zoological Museum 

 of Stockholm, discovered that it was due to the vibration 

 of the stiff webs of the outer tail-feathers, caused by 

 the action upon them of the air as the bird descends 

 rapidly in the course of its " play ;" the sound, 

 as I have before remarked, being heard only as the 

 snipe falls.* That it is not produced in any way 

 by the throat is evident from the fact that the 

 ordinary cry of the snipe, which Selby not inaptly 

 likens to "the word chissick lispingly pronounced," 

 has been heard simultaneously with the drumming 

 noise ; and Mr. Harting (" Birds of Middlesex") on one 

 occasion, was enabled to satisfy himself that the beak 

 remained closed at the moment the drumming sound 

 was perceptible. Mr. Meves thus explains the circum- 

 stances which led to his very remarkable discovery. 

 " The peculiar form," he says, " of the tail feathers in 

 some foreign species, nearly allied to the common snipe ; 



* Another sound, or properly speaking, note, is occasionally 

 heard as the bird ascends, which Yarrell likens to the word 

 " tinker, tinker, uttered in a sharp shrill tone." 



