492 
MU. H. STEVENSON ON TFIE COMMON SNIPE. 
IMr. Seebohm’s opinion as to the cause of this peculiar sound, than 
that “ few birds are more solitary in their habits than Snipes,” or 
the following statement, alluding to the “here to-day and gone 
to-morrow ” habit of the species that, on some particularly 
favoured marsh, they will still be “ put up here and there at some 
distance from each other, and that observers who have been 
fortunate enough to remark them on migration, say that they 
travel singly or in pairs.” As to the first of these statements 
I can only refer to my personal experience on one occasion (‘ Birds 
of hlorfolk,’ vol. ii. p. 320), when in a marsh at Horning (on the 
23rd of November, 1853), I met with a similar incident to that 
given by Thompson in his ‘ Birds of Ireland ’ (vol. ii. p. 262). 
The low lands were much flooded, and the Snipe seemed to have 
congregated on marshes having a higher level. The moment one 
stepped out of the boat the sceire was bewildering ; Snipe to the 
left of you. Snipe to the right of you. Scape close in front of you. 
Scape at your back ; it was more like a stubble field full of Sky- 
larks during the autumnal migration than anything I ever saw. 
As Thompson says, the difflculty was to pick out a bird and stick 
to it ; and though a fair shot at that time, I must own, that in this 
crossing and recrossing of birds, all laying close, I missed five 
shots with my first barrel and killed them all with the left ; and if 
my friend and myself had carried breechloaders and daylight had 
lasted we should have had a big bag ; as it was we managed twelve 
or fourteen couples without leaving that one small marsh. As to 
migrating singly or in pairs, as Mr. Seebohm states, I have tlie 
authority of a thorough naturalist and sportsman in this county 
the late Bev. J. Burroughes, that on two or three occasions he had 
known of extraordinary migrations of Snipe in Norfolk, where 
the birds kept on in continuous flights like Skylarks in southern 
counties, and as I have known Bramlings to do in this county. 
On one occasion also, near Buckenham Hoi’seshoes, on the Yare, 
with snow on the ground, a migratory flock of Snipes flew so low, 
in passing over a fence near a gateway, that some were knocked 
down v/ith sticks. 
To return, however, to the drumming sound of the Snipe, it 
seems natural that those who presumed it to be a vocal eflort only, 
should have regarded it as the spring call-note of the male bird to 
its mate ; and dismissing the idea of vocalism altogether, one 
