Voices of the Night 



ducing his weird drumming or bleating sounds high up 

 in the heavens. Hardly any point in natural history 

 save perhaps the age-old controversy as to whether and 

 how a woodcock carries its young from place to place 

 has resulted in so much discussion as the means by 

 which the snipe produces this part of its nuptial 

 serenade. All kinds of ingenious theories have been 

 formulated by sportsmen and naturalists, but I think 

 careful observations and experiments have proved that 

 the sounds are made by the two outside feathers in the 

 bird's tail vibrating rapidly as it descends through the 

 air. A snipe never drums whilst winging its way up- 

 wards. The sounds are produced whilst the bird is 

 descending with its tail feathers spread out fanwise and 

 the two outside quills a little apart from the rest. 



Anyone curious enough to test the truth of this 

 statement can easily do so by watching a drumming 

 snipe during a spring evening through a pair of good 

 field glasses, and then trying the following* experiment : 

 Fix a cork about an inch in diameter to the feathered 

 end of an arrow, and then lash on to it the two outside 

 quills from a snipe's tail, allowing them to assume, as 

 nearly as possible, the same angle they occupy to the 

 bird's tail whilst in the act of bleating, and then shoot 

 the arrow high in the air, and in its descent it will re- 

 produce with wonderful fidelity the drumming of an 

 amorous snipe in the breeding season. 



The nightjar or goatsucker produces its machine-like 

 trill at varying intervals from dusk till dawn, as it rests 

 lengthwise along the branch of a tree, and varies this 



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