MR H. KTEVEN80N ON THE COMMON SNIPE. 
495 
case, but we all know of the early, almost abnormal, notes of 
Thrushes and other birds, which, though vocal, may originate from 
the same impulse as early drumming in the Snipe. 
Loth Mr. Halting in the ‘ Zoologist’ (1881), and Mr. Seehohm 
in his ‘ British Birds,’ have quoted from the appendix to the 
‘ Birds of Ceylon ’ by Captain W. V. Legge, whose personal 
observations on the humming of the Snipe are so admirably 
rendered, and so true, that I cannot better conclude this paper 
than by repeating them, as the old idea of vocalism is quite set 
aside, Meves’s tail-feather theory is equally superseded, and a 
compromise established that the wing and tail feathers are jointly 
concerned in that “ mysterious sound,” the vibratory motion of the 
wings being tlie main cause, and the stiff feathers of the tail 
feathers, spread like a fan, secondary only, like the sound 
produced by a thin paper blown through when spread over 
a comb. 
“The most favourable occasion I had for observation was on the evening 
of the 10th of .Tunc (in Wales), when a Snijie, having young near where I 
was standing, drummed over my head, flying backwards and forwards, in the 
manner now to bo described, without cessation, for a period of fifty-two 
minutes, timed by my watch. The aerial course taken by the bird was an 
ellipse of the average length of a (piarter of a mile, described over where I 
stood, but it wius sometimes varied by her making a figure of ‘S’ above my 
head; the bird always returuing to its original starting j>oint in the air, and 
again making the siime tour. The movement for the puqmse of drumming 
W!us gouenilly performetl twice, but sometimes thrice, going and coming, 
making from four to si.x times in each figure described. It flew at a height 
of about a hundred yards, with a (piick regular movement of the wings, and 
drummed in this wise. The body was suddenly turned on one side, and the 
bird descended rapidly for about a hundred feet, at an angle of 15 degrees, 
moving its wings with very rapid and powerful strokes, its tail being, at the 
same time opened to the utmost ; having arrived at the lowest point of 
its descent, it suddenly turned its body in the reverse direction, that is, 
elevated the wing which had been before depressed, and with a .short upward 
sweep ceased the drumming noise, and rose to its original position, continued 
its course for a short distance, and then descended with the same rush again. 
The movement was always performed with the same wing pointed down- 
wards throughout one-half of the bird’s course, that is, if it commenced to 
drum with the left wing down when flying from east to west, that wing 
was inclined downwards the next time it descended until the course was 
alteretl, and the binl flew back from west to east when usually the other 
wing was inclined towards. The instant the bird commenced its descent 
