270 
SCOLOPACIDJ]:. 
vious days; on each of which^ several birds^ on being sprung 
by the dog, soared high into the air and made the bleating 
noise peculiar to the breeding-season. The nest, exposed though 
it be, is not easily discovered by the uninitiated. Many years 
ago I accompanied a friend to the mountain bogs to look for 
snipes^ nests, that the eggs might be added to his collection, 
when, after searching for a long time, and about to leave the last 
bog, one was discovered ; — but only by my friend putting his 
foot in it, and crushing the whole of the four eggs ! Thus ended 
the hopes of the poor snipe in that brood and, at the same time, 
our nesting expedition. A dog-breaker told me of his springing 
young snipes on the mountain on the 18th of April, 1832. It is 
extremely interesting to visit the breeding-haunts of this bird 
when the two notes peculiar to the season, in addition to the 
drumming or bleating, may be heard. Tor half an hour at a 
time I have Hstened to the almost incessant bleating, and if the 
birds be breeding to so late a period as I have heard it (the end 
of July), there is ample time for two broods in the year. With 
reference to the two different notes of the snipe in the breeding- 
season, it is perhaps necessary to explain that the piping note 
weU observed to resemble the sound peet” repeated,"^ and that 
which has been likened to the sound of the word tinker, uttered 
in a sharp slirill tone,'^t are meant : — the former. I have generally 
heard during the bird^s ascending flight, and the latter chiefly from 
the ground. Late on a lovely summer evening (18th of June, 
1843) I watched for a longtime a snipe that was drumming, &c., 
and remarked that it was occasionally joined by another for a 
short period, the latter, believed to be the female, always retiring 
to a boggy part of the hiU suited to its nest : the other never 
alighted. Whether this bird was high or low in the air, the 
* Note to White’s ‘ Selborne/ by the Hon. and Kev. Wm. Herbert, p. 167. 
Bennett’s edit. 
f Tbe writer in Loudon’s ‘ Magazine of Natural History,’ vol. ii. p. 144, from 
whom this is borrowed (Mr. Yarrell writing under the initials H. V. D.), remarks 
that this call is uttered on the snipe’s ascending flight, and Sir Wm. Jardine (‘ Brit. 
Birds,’ vol. hi. p. 180) mentions its piping among the herbage. 
