128 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
concedo. In spite, however, of my own conviction, confirmed by experiment, 
two adverse cases reported by a forester caused me still to reflect upon it. 
In both eases a Snipe was said to have been observed ‘ bleating’ as it sat, or 
rather stood, on a little elevation of the ground. From my point of view 
this seemed to me impossible, and I therefore attributed the forester’s state- 
ment to a delusion on his part, caused by his having supposed that the 
sound from an unseen Snipe high in air proceeded from the bird which he saw 
sitting close at hand. I have since received from our Academician, Herr 
Alexander Schmidt, the following highly interesting piece of evidence :—In 
March, 1880, in his teaching district, Neuhausel, he shot a Snipe which he 
only winged. He carried it alive in his hand and against the wind. 
Suddenly it began to ‘ bleat’ softly, the tail being stiffly expanded and the 
air blowing on the web of the feathers producing such a sound as would be 
caused by blowing on a knife-edge. To convince himself on the subject, 
Herr Schmidt moved the bird rapidly against the wind, and found his object 
fully attained. For a good half-hour he had the satisfaction of letting the 
expanded tail-feathers ‘hum’ as he pleased in the way indicated. The sound 
differed in no respect from that produced by a pairing Snipe at large. With 
the knowledge of this fact, the last doubt as to the origin of this much- 
talked-of sound should be set at rest. 
“This seems to prove, first, that the tail-feathers, without the aid of 
the wings, produce the sound, for the wings of the bird in question were 
laid close to the body and restrained by the hand; and, secondly, that the 
sound may be produced from a Snipe sitting on the ground when subjected 
to only a moderate opposing wind as described. In conversation with 
several of our Academiciaus on this circumstance, two of them, Herr 
Schilling and Herr Goebel, informed me that they had heard a Snipe 
‘bleat’ upon the ground, and the former distinctly remembered that a 
strong breeze was blowing at the time.” 
In a subsequent number of the ‘ Ornithologisches Central- 
blatt’ (15th Nov., 1880), Herr Zéppritz, of Darmstadt, confesses 
his inability to accept this story, and, admitting that the forester 
referred to heard the sound in question while he held a wounded 
Snipe in his hand, suggests that he was under a misapprehension 
as to the way in which it was produced. He says:— 
« As is already known, much has been written’on this subject, especially 
in Cabanis’ ‘Journal fiir Ornithologie’ and in the ‘ Naumannia,’ without 
any definite settlement of the question being arrived at. Two years ago, 
in Waidmann’s ‘ Sporting Journal,’ I published an article on this subject, 
wherein I offered to pay a fine of 500 marks to the treasury of the 
‘Allgemeine Deutsche Jagd-schutz-verein,’ if three umpires appointed by 
the ‘ Verein’ publicly declared (with their names subscribed) that they were 
