io6 APRIL 



white woodpecker has been seen. The green abounds 

 and breeds in known holes. Some residents believe (with 

 W. H. Hudson) that the green woodpecker also is an 

 instrumentalist, though the idea is now discredited. Is 

 it, after all, so certain that the green woodpecker never 

 follows the method of the two others ? 



Mechanical lyrics are not altogether rare. The greater 

 and lesser spotted woodpeckers drum with their beaks 

 on hollow wood ; the snipe drums in the air with its 

 vibrating feathers, so accompanying the poetry of the 

 cadence of its flight. The wood-pigeon, unsatisfied by 

 the iteration of its sentimental croon, zooms up into the 

 air and claps its wings over the back with a rattle. The 

 little ecstasies of spring flight are patterned rather like the 

 zigzag of the tree pipits, and, though the pipit sings with 

 charm during the gymnastic, the flight of both birds is as 

 definite a part of the lyric as when rook and, more 

 saliently, raven, tumble silently in the high air like 

 stunting aeroplanes. 



The snipe, perhaps, should most enjoy his peculiar 

 music. His manoeuvre is the opposite of the skylark s, 

 who soaring ever sings. The snipe s Aeolian harp is only 

 musical when the high, rapid, wayward flight gives place 

 to a dive, only less straight and quick than the stooping 

 of a hawk. The singing of the air through the quivering 

 feathers must be a glorious accompaniment to the speed. 

 What is most delightful in an aeroplane, at any rate a 

 small open aeroplane, is the pleasant subdued rustle that 

 follows the shameless noise of the toiling engine. The 

 glory of such a sensation must be felt by the snipe as he 

 plays this musical antic. The sound is usually compared 

 with a bleat, and the crude comparison is true enough, 

 but heard above the marsh in spring (as I have heard 

 it at Wicken Fen, and indeed in many another marsh) 



