BIRD NOTES. 85 



placed log his tattoo can be heard a mile." Since, however, it 

 has been repeatedly discovered that the mysterious resonant flut- 

 ter is accomplished equally as well upon a rock, or even upon the 

 bare ground, the "drumming-log" theory has lost favor. Now ap- 

 pears a conservative coterie who would seem desirous of concili- 

 ating the disputants, while determined to be on the winning side 

 anyhow ; Brewer, for instance, who claims that the bird " beats 

 its sides and the log" simultaneously, a belief which is shared 

 by Samuels and many followers. 



Against this I would oppose the witness of another unprofes- 

 sional but equally close observer, the writer, in truth, who deposes 

 and says that the bird does nothing of the kind; that in the one 

 instance, though brief, where its movements were observed by 

 him, the clearly defined limit of the visible whir of the wings 

 seen from behind demonstrated that no feather of the bird's wing 

 touched the body or the log upon which the bird stood ; while, 

 on the other hand, the feathery halo almost merged over the 

 back, suggesting a new possibility in the resonant source. 



Not to be outdone by the opposing diplomatists, here we find 

 another class who would seem to rest their case in the artful non- 

 committal of Wilson, claiming to connect his negative suggestion 

 above with the positive statement that the bird " strikes nothing 

 but the air" 



Following the suggestion intimated from my own observation 

 opens up a new line of investigation. Here is the testimony of 

 Wilson Flagg, for instance : " Whenever I have gained sight of a 

 partridge in the act of drumming, he seemed to elevate his wings 

 and strike them together over his back, increasing the rapidity of 

 the strokes," etc. 



But Thoreau long anticipated him, as witness the following 

 from his journal for the year 1855, in which he chronicles the 

 discovery of a neighbor who was wont to prove his assertions : 

 " He had seen a partridge drum standing on a wall ; said it stood 

 very upright, and produced the sound by striking its wings to- 

 gether behind its back, as a cock often does, but did not strike 

 the wall or its body. This he is sure of, and declares that he 



