244 BRITISH BIRDS. 



uttering a sound which is technically called " drumming." The sound is 

 only heard when the bird is descending, but some observers assert that 

 they have heard it proceeding from a Snipe on the ground or perched on 

 a dead branch. It has been likened to the bleating of a goat, and bears 

 some resemblance to the suppressed gobble sometimes heard from a Turkey. 

 Great difference of opinion exists as to the means by which this sound is 

 produced. Bechstein and many subsequent writers have argued that it 

 proceeds from the throat. Naumaun, Macgillivray, Hancock, Saxby, 

 Jardine, Blyth, and others have maintained that it is caused by the rapid 

 vibration of the wings. Altum, Meves, and most modern ornithologists 

 find the musical instrument in the rush of the air through the stiff feathers 

 of the outspread tail ; and Legge thinks the sound is produced by the com- 

 bined action of wings and tail. I have listened to the drumming of the 

 Snipe scores of times with the express purpose of discovering the mode in 

 which the sound is produced, and must confess myself completely puzzled. 

 Arguing from analogy (a very dangerous proceeding, by the way, in orni- 

 thology) I should say it was produced by the vocal organs, and is analogous 

 to the trill of the Stints and other Sandpipers. The fact that it appears to 

 begin the instant the bird begins to descend inclines me to think that, 

 after allowance is made for the time it takes for sound to travel, it must 

 really begin before the descent, whilst the bird is not moving very 

 rapidly. 



Although the Snipe appears to be almost exclusively a ground-bird, its 

 occasional habit of perching in trees, generally on a dead branch, and by 

 preference on the topmost twig, has been noticed and recorded by Naumann 

 and many other writers ; and in North Russia I have seen my friend 

 Harvie-Brown shoot a Snipe which was perched on the topmost twig of a 

 larch just bursting into leaf, at least fifty feet from the ground. 



Fresh eggs of the Snipe may be obtained from the middle of April to 

 the middle of May. Exceptionally early clutches have been recorded as 

 early as the last week of March, but in the Arctic regions it does not breed 

 until the middle of June. The nest is a mere depression lined with dead 

 grass, and is generally placed in a bunch of rushes or sedge in the middle 

 of a swamp. The eggs, nearly always four in number, vary in ground- 

 colour, on the one hand from pale greyish buff' to rich brownish buff, and 

 on the other from pale olive to pale greyish green, spotted and blotched 

 with rich dark brown, and with underlying markings of pale brown and 

 grey. Most of the blotches are on the large end of the egg, often placed 

 obliquely, and many of them confluent; sometimes they form a broad 

 irregular zone, and are often intermixed with very dark-brown streaks and 

 scratches. The underlying markings are large, numerous, and very con- 

 spicuous. The eggs vary in length from 1'65 to 1*5 inch, and in breadth 

 from 1*15 to 1*05 inch. The eggs of the Common Snipe very closely 



