NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



great surprise, it would rise and fly a little further. He 

 actually acknowledged he fired one day eighteen times 

 at the bird, and after shooting at it for the whole season, 

 he happened to be crossing the bog it lay in, when he 

 put it up, and exclaiming, 'There's my old friend!' 

 threw his stick at it and killed it on the spot. When- 

 ever after any of his brother officers found a jack-snipe 

 they were always sure to say, * There goes Quarter- 

 master Molloy!'" 



It is not often nowadays that all three kinds of snipe 

 are shot in a single field, or on a small patch of fen, 

 but in the month of October, 1901, on a bog of about 

 an acre in extent on the estate of Glenlair, Dalbeattie, 

 Kirkudbrightshire, a common snipe, a jack-snipe, and 

 a double or solitary snipe were all shot in one day. 



The well-known "drumming" of the snipe and its 

 cause have, I suppose, given rise to as much theory 

 and as many differences of opinion as any phenomenon 

 in the natural history of birds. Some few years ago 

 much discussion took place concerning this habit in 

 the pages of the Field newspaper. One of the most 

 interesting and, to my mind, convincing letters was 

 contributed by Mr. F. Boyes, of Beverley, a well- 

 known naturalist and sportsman and a most keen 

 observer. This letter so coincides with my own im- 

 pressions and observations that I append it. 



*' In the correspondence which has taken place in your 

 columns respecting the ' drumming ' of the snipe, it has 

 appeared to me that your contributors have confused the 

 vocal notes of the bird with that most peculiar sound which 

 it makes by the aid of its tail and wings. What is known 

 to naturalists as the ' drumming ' or * bleating ' of the snipe 

 is that sound which the bird makes when on the wing and 

 whilst it is descending rapidly and obliquely through the air. 

 Let me describe the ' drumming ' of the snipe. We enter 



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