494 
MR. H. STEVENSON ON THE COMMON SNIPE. 
of Europe ’ adheres to Herr Meves’s belief in the tail-feathers only 
producing the sound. 
That veteran ornithologist, John Hancock of Newcastle, in his 
‘ Catalogue of the Birds of Northumberland and Durham,’ also 
devotes much space in discussing Herr Meves’s belief and his tail- 
feather experiments, and having repeated them himself was still 
unconvinced that the wings were not, at least, the primary cause of 
the sound. He aptly remarks : “ The bird descends because the 
flight movements of the bird have ceased ; the peculiar curve and 
inclination of the descent are regulated by the outspread tail, the 
sweep itself is perfectly steady and uninfluenced by a tremulous 
vibratory or ‘shivering’ motion of the wings.” He also refers to the 
similar “play” of the Wood Sandpiper in spring, which produces 
a similar drumming sound in its descending flights. Though the 
outer tail-feathers of this species do not differ from those of the 
Common Sandpiper, the Dunlin, and Tiedshank, yet none of these 
• produce the same sound, on the wing, although in each the tail 
feathers “ are sabre-shaped, with the shaft rigid, quite as much as in 
the Snipe.” 
Both Harting and Hancock also recognise the fact that the 
Lapwing or Peewit, as it is commonly called, the Book and other 
species produce a certain humming sound with their wings ; the 
Lapwing especially when one intrudes on its breeding haunts, as 
I ha\m had ample experience of, but this from the nature of the tail 
feathers can only be regarded as an analogous sound made by the 
wings. Macgillivray, who declares for the wing theory, remarks 
pointedly, “if it were produced by the voice it might be emitted 
when the bird was on the ground or during its ordinary flight ; ” 
but he is doubtful if it is caused by both sexes. 
Mr. Lubbock calls it the call of love of the cock bird ; but the 
late Rev. T. J. Blofeld, of Hoveton, assured me he had heard 
a Snipe drumming during severe weather in January ; and his old 
marshman Hewitt said ho had noticed the same thing, and 
believed it preluded sharp weather, which in this instance was the 
* Colonel Irby, in his ‘ Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar,’ remarks 
that although he had never heard the drumming of the Snipe in Andalusia, 
yet in England, in the Now Forest, ho had occasionally heard them 
drumming of an evening, as early as the 20th of January; the weather then 
being nunsually mild, and the locality their usual nesting ground. 
