SNIPE 43 



but I caught and handled them for some minutes, 

 the parent bird remaining near, uttering her cries. I 

 marked the spot and went back next day, only to 

 find that the birds had vanished. 



The snipe, too, is an annual breeder, and from what 

 I saw of it on the heath I think we have yet some- 

 thing to learn concerning the breeding habits of that 

 much-observed bird. The parent bird is not so wise 

 as most mothers in the feathered world, since her 

 startling cry of alarm, sounding in a small way like 

 the snort of a frightened horse, will attract a person 

 to the spot where she is sheltering her young among 

 the myrtle. She will repeat the cry at intervals a 

 dozen times without stirring or attempting to conceal 

 the young. But she does not always act in the same 

 way. Sometimes she has risen to a great height and 

 begun circling above me, the circles growing smaller 

 or larger as I came nearer or went farther from the 

 spot where the young were lurking. 



It was until recently a moot question as to whether 

 or not the female snipe made the drumming or bleat- 

 ing sound ; some of the authorities say that this sound 

 proceeds only from the male bird. I have no doubt 

 that both birds make the sound. Invariably when I 

 disturbed a snipe with young, and when she mounted 

 high in the air, to wheel round and round, uttering 

 her anxious cries, she dashed downwards at intervals, 

 and produced the bleating or drumming which the 

 male birds emit when playing about the sky. 



