OF SELBOBNE. 
119 
When you say^ that in breeding time the cock snipes 
make a bleating noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I should 
have rather said a humming), I suspect vre mean the same 
thing. However, while they are playing about on the 
wing, they certainly make a loud piping with their mouths ; 
but whether that bleating or humming is ventriloquous, or 
proceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannot say ; but 
this I know, that when this noise happens, the bird is 
always descending, and his wings are violently agitated." 
Soon after the lapwings have done breeding, they con- 
gregate, and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake them- 
selves to downs and sheep-walks. 
Two years ago last spring the little auk was found alive 
and unhurt, but fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a 
few miles from Alresford, where there is a great lake ; it 
was kept awhile, but died.'^ 
I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer 
1 " British Zoology," vol. ii. p. 358. 
^ Reference has already been made to this curious sound, and to the 
mode in which it is supposed to be produced. See antea, p. 35, note 4. 
The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, in a note to the above passage, has 
the following pertinent remarks : — " I have observed the drumming of 
snipes in bright days at the beginning of April, and I could very clearly 
discern the manner in which the sound is produced. After rising high, 
and crying peet, peet, peet, which is the snipe's vernal note, it lets itself 
drop obliquely through the air, keeping the wings motionless, but 
turning by some muscular contraction each individual quill sideways in 
the same manner that the bars of a Venetian blind are turned to admit 
more hght, and having descended to the customary point, it readjusts 
its feathers, and rises again obliquely without sound. They will 
continue for hours together amusing themselves in this manner upon a 
mild day, and when they are in this mood, the sportsman has very little 
chance of getting near them. The cushat has a sportive movement a 
little similar, in the summer time, in the narrow wooded valleys amongst 
the hills ; it is less observed in flat countries. It descends obliquely 
without any motion of the wings, and when it has dived to the usual 
point of descent, flaps its wings with a loud noise, and towers again 
obliquely to the other side of the valley." 
The rook, the peewit, and the black-headed gull all produce at times 
a loud humming sound with the wings. — Ed. 
* Although the little auk is a sea-bird, many instances have been 
recorded of its having been found inland during or after stormy 
weather, — Ed. 
