CONCORD 
1909 
Sora Sail 
W ilson 1 b 
S nipe 
Scaipe 
note 
Drummi ng 
i Last evening I heard, a peculiar cry coming, after 
dark, from somewhere well out towards the middle of Great 
Meadow. It sounded most like the er- e of the Sora, but was 
shriller and less musical as well as given more frequently 
and vigorously. This evening I heard it again, much nearer 
at hand, as I was sitting in my canoe in Beaver Dam Lagoon, 
and at once decided that the bird must be a Sora with a 
peculiar voice. This conclusion was confirmed when I heard 
what seemed to be the same bird give the typical whinnying 
call of the Sora. The er-e was given only a dozen times or 
so, at wide and irregular intervalsT] 
As twilight fell, Wilson’s Snipe began rising and 
flying about over Great Meadow from which the river flood 
has just receded, leaving pools of stagnant surface water 
among the upspringing grass. I could not see any of them 
but judging by their e&lls there must have been half a 
dozen or more. For a time I heard only the scaipe note 
which, as is usual when the birds are taking short flights 
from place to place of a calm evening, had a deep, guttural 
quality. At length, when it was nearly dark, one began 
drumming, evidently flying in a great circle that embraced 
nearly the entire meadow and hence was fully a mile in 
circumference.^For fifteen minutes or more I listened 
delightedly to its weird melody which thrilled me as it 
