where Captain Shelley says that in February he has killed
over forty couple in a day. It ascends the Nile to Nubia
and Abyssinia, and, by the elevated lake Ashangi, Mr. W.
T. Blanford found it as late as May. Von Heuglin observed
it in Arabia Petrma and in the Somali country; and it occurs
in Socotra. On the western side of Africa, the winter range
of our Snipe extends to the Gambia, but in -the southern
portion of that continent it is replaced by G. cequatonalis.
In summer our Snipe is found across Siberia up ‘to* and
even beyond, the Arctic circle; but on tho.Yenesei, in 6.7° N.
lat*,. Mr. Seebehm found a preponderance of- the Pin-tailed
Snipe, G. stenura, a species which may be distinguished by
the very narrow stiff feathers oh each side of .the tail, which
is also shorter, and by the black bars to all the under wing-
coverts, some of which are white in our Snipe. , Both these
species visit India in abundance during the cold season.
Our bird is found in winter in Asia Minor and Persia.; feit
breeds in Turkestan, and on l2 tfo u n e Br,.-Scully obtained
its eggs on the lofty table-lands of Yarkand, whence it departs
Ih winter. On its .migrations ifceyidently c r o s s e s g r e a t
ranges of Central Asia ; it has been obtained in Japan, is
very abundant in China, and goes-south’ as far as ’-Ceylon,
the Philippine Islands, and Malaysia!- , ;
Towards the latter half of-March, or .beginning of-April,
according to' climatic conditions, Shape begin 4o produce »that
humming .or bleating noise whjektiias t ohtainadafoi the
species the name of|Moor-lamb’ in Lincolnshire, ‘Heafcher-
bleater ’ in lowland Scotland; .the-equivalents.of ‘air-goat’
in the various branches of the 'Celtic- language, I'Chevre
volant’ in- France,..and .tHimmetegeisg'’ in rGermanv.
This sound' is always> utteredsonthe -wingather bird1 soaring
at an immense .height, often, oat, ofiisight; and .descending
|§!f§| ?rea^ and^ with a tremulous mewemehf -of the
pinions. Th|se? ffightsiare" more^ ooinmonly performed to,T
wards evening, and,. cpntinue while the female - j^ u b Aingj
The cause-of- this peculiar sound has been • much .disputed;
suPPosed thaVit was producedBydEe’ wings, but
■Mr. *W. an' elaborate
paper, translated by the late John Wolley (P. Z. S. 1858,
p. 199), stated that a series of experiments showed that thé
sound was due to the vibration of the stiff webs of the outei*
tail-feathers, acted upon by thé air in the course of the
rapid descent of the bird. This explanation was accepted
by several ornithologists; hut Mi*. John Hancock, whose
powers of observation are second to none* having tried the
experiments upon which so much stress has been laid, pronounces
them tó be of little real value. His exhaustive
arguments are too long to be given; but dfter pointing out
that the Snipe is by no means the only bird which produces
this ‘ drumming,’ ‘ bleating,’ or & heighing ’ sound,
he considers that it results frord the action öf the wings,
and that the tail-feathëré are incapable of producing any-.-
thing addible at a distance»* Goloüel ;SFi V. Legge (Birds
ofr Ceylon, p. 1219), describes his personal experièncës in
Wales with the result that in his opinion the wings were
the primary cause of the sound, and the tail-feathers, spread
like a fan, were the secondary causes The question is well
get forth by Mr. J. Et Harting (ZooL 1881, pp. 1214181),
who adheros to the ‘ wing theory J
The Snipe has been recorded as having eggs as early as
the 20th of March, hut, as a rule, if ié not bëfofê April that
it makes its slight nest, consisting only of a few bits of.
dead grass or dry herbage, collected in a depression on the
ground, and sometimes upon or under the side of a tuft óf
grass or bunch of rushes. The eggs- are usually four in
number, of a pale yellowish or greenish-white, the larger
end spotted- with two or three shades,of brown; thdse markings
are rather elongated, and disposed somewhat obliquely
in reference to the long axis of the egg; the measurements
being about 1*6 by 1*1 in. Incubation, undertaken by the
female only, lasts rather more, than a fortnight, and the young
are able to run on effiëfgïng irom the shell. If would appear
that two broods are sometimes reared in the season, for the
young in down have been observed in the middle of August.
The Snipe’s alarm note, scape, scape, or èhissick, is as well
; * NaW Hist. Trans. Northumberland and Dnrh. vi. pp. lOS-llS.
vol. iil i I n