254 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



scrubby tree, and bringing my glasses to bear on the strange 

 musician, I noticed that the sound was always produced when 

 the bird, turning suddenly at the highest part of its flight, 

 pitched downwards, and manipulated his wings with greater 

 rapidity. Again and again I saw him turn, and as often the 

 drumming was repeated, and I felt quite convinced that it 

 was no vocal production. 



On July 1 2th I was at Belton, chatting with a native in his 

 garden, at the edge of a small fen bordering on the marshes. 

 Brookes, the said native, is a semi-naturalist, half a sports- 

 man, general carpenter and factotum of the village, and 

 a good observer to boot. He pointed out a dead tree, to the 

 bare topmost bough of which, twenty feet from the ground, 

 with wings fluttering^ and head poised at half a right angle, 

 a snipe repeatedly resorted to drum ; " the noise," he 

 emphatically assured me, " coming from the throat ! " Quite 

 a number of snipes nest yearly on the marshes between his 

 place, near the railway station, and the Burgh " walls." He 

 had seen a snipe vibrating its wings and drumming, when 

 poised, on the topmost sail of an adjoining mill. He would 

 hear nothing of a possibility of his seeing one snipe in such 

 a situation, and hearing others drumming on the wing at the 

 time. 



In a note to the Eastern Daily Press I asked for informa- 

 tion on this point, and shortly after secured the following 

 letter on the subject : 



" COLTISHALL, NORWICH, Oct. I2//?, 1906. 



" DEAR SIR, I see you raise the question, in your letter of 

 to-day in the E.D.P. as to the drumming of the snipe. It 

 is a very vexed question, though I have not much doubt in 

 my own mind about its being the combined action of the 

 wings and tail. 



" I had a splendid opportunity some years ago of observing 

 the operation. I was standing under a small tree on the 

 marshes, near Belaugh, when I heard a snipe drum. It 

 evidently did not see me, as it made its dive some five or six 

 times, coming down within thirty feet, just over my head, 

 and I distinctly saw what I have never seen in any picture, 

 or in any description, that at the base of the tail, which was 

 fully expanded, a sabre-shaped feather was standing out [on 

 either side] at right-angles. I am not sure, at this distance 

 of time, whether the curved part was in front or not. The 

 wings were half-closed and vibrating very rapidly, which would 



