The Birds and Poets 191 



of wet ground, grown up to thick grass and brush, 

 surrounded by dry pasture. My two companions 

 and I flushed the birds one after another, and upon 

 taking flight they rapidly darted off close over the 

 ground, in zigzag fashion, until they were some 

 distance away when they rose high in the air, 

 circled rapidly about in the leaden sky directly 

 over our heads, and then suddenly dropped down 

 with great velocity into the little swamp, as if they 

 had been thrown from a catapult. I remember full 

 well that several times we flushed the birds and 

 watched them go through the same gyrations, for 

 our youthful skill in marksmanship was not equal 

 to the birds' skill in flight. At each precipitous 

 descent a whistling, tremulous sound was heard, 

 produced by the rushing of the air through the 

 birds' feathers. They returned to the swamp after 

 each flight, however, apparently unwilling to trust 

 themselves elsewhere than in the dense thicket or 

 the high sky above. 



While these birds have no song, the whistling, 

 bleating sound made when descending rapidly to 

 the earth, gives them a place among the instru- 

 mentalists, with the peacocks, grouse, woodpeckers 

 and some foreign species. The particular method 

 of the snipe in producing this instrumental music, 

 however, distinguishes it from all other instrumen- 

 talists. 



Darwin, after discussing several species of birds 

 that practice certain forms of instrumental music, 



