BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
the " Curiosities at Drumfriess," writes thus of the species : 
" Myre-snipes (which is like a Feldefare) called Heatherbleet. 
In pleasant summer evenings they soar high in the an- with 
a quivering voice, and are excellent meat."* In both the 
Statistical Accounts of Scotland there are many local 
references as to its abundance, and there is no doubt that 
in those old days of undrained bogs and mosses. Snipe were 
more common with us than now. The names " Heather- 
bleat," or " bleater," are earned by this species in spring, 
when it may be seen high overhead circling around its 
nesting-haunt, now rising, now falling with outspread tail, 
through which the rushing air causes the weird sound so 
like the distant bleating of a goat. This " drumming," as 
it is also called, is produced by both sexes, and the subject 
has been recently dealt with in an exhaustive manner by 
Dr. P. H. Bahr, who conclusively confirms previous state- 
ments that the sound is produced by the two outer taU- 
feathers.f I have heard the " Heather-bleat " locally, so 
early as February 4th and so late as August 1st. Richard 
Bell of Castle O'er writes in 1905 : " There is a bird 
which scares many a country man and woman, though 
they do not know what the terrible thing really is," and 
he adds that he remembers as a boy (1840) being told by 
a servant-maid " among other terrors " of " the Heather- 
bleat, the most fearsome of all, believing as she did, that 
it was a ghost pure and simple." { 
Eggs, rarely found as early as the end of March, have been 
found so late as June 23rd in 1905, on which date my 
photograph, reproduced in the accompanying plate, was 
obtained. In some seasons, as in 1904, Snipe appear at 
their breeding-haunts in far greater numbers than in others. 
A great and most noticeable augmentation of their numbers 
occurs in October, at which season our home-bred birds 
leave the vicinity of their breeding-places and gather into 
* Sibbald's MS. Collections, p. 228. 
t Zoologist, 1907, pp. 12-35. 
J My Strange Pets, p. 86. 
