Bird Watching. Edmund Selous
note. I can see the two long mandibles of the beak dividing slightly and again closing. The note is now thin and subdued, but, the bird taking flight suddenly, it becomes much accentuated. It joins two other birds in the air, and all three now sport and pursue each other about, constantly uttering this cry, but bleating only occasionally. I am lying flat on the ground, and they often fly close about and over me, the light, too, being good, it being all before 5.40, and not much after 5, perhaps, when it commenced (this was April 4th). I note that they often descend through the air without vibrating the wings, and there is then no bleating sound—this whilst quite close. I think—but am not yet quite sure—that they sometimes descend in this way uttering the cry. When they bleat, however, there is never the cry at the same time. It is impossible to tell when these birds are going to alight, as they often descend in the manner that they use when alighting, but, when almost down, skim a little just over the ground, and, rising again, continue their flight as before. Yet that they have had it in their mind to alight I feel sure, for they always do so with that particular action."
Since, then, the snipe has two ways of making his rapid descents through the air, in one of which he quivers his wings and in the other not, and since, on the latter occasion, the bleat is not heard or, if heard, only faintly, it would be natural to suppose that the sound—if not vocal—was produced by the rapidly vibrating feathers of the wing when in swift downward motion rather than by those of the tail, which should not, one would think, be affected by the difference. Also the fact of the vocal note not being uttered at the same time as the bleat might make one think that this, too, was vocal. Such arguments, however, would be at best but "poor seemings and thin likelihoods"—the last one, I believe, not supported by what we know (at least I cannot at the moment think of a bird that produces vocal and instrumental music at the same time). If the sound can really be reproduced by waving the modified feathers of the tail, then this is a demonstration.[7]
[7] I have lately observed that when the snipe descends with quivering wings, some outer feathers of the tail on each side are shot out from it in a most noticeable manner, making—or looking like—two little curved tufts. They are not seen before, which seems to me strong evidence. The tail itself is fanned.
Snipe, as already observed, descend to the ground in order to alight upon it in a manner quite different to the oblique downward-shooting sweeps, with wings extended, whether vibrating or not, as practised in ordinary nuptial flight. There are three ways, possibly more; but three I have seen. In the first the bird shoots gracefully down, with the wings pressed to the sides, as already described. In the second the wings are raised straight, or almost straight, above the back, and this gives, perhaps, a still more graceful appearance. The third way is not nearly so usual a one as the other two—in fact, I only recall having seen it once. In this the wings are but half spread (whilst held in the ordinary manner) and motionless, and the bird descends in several sweeps to one side or the other, something after the manner in which a kite comes to the ground. No sound attends any of these forms of descent.
The cry of the snipe which I have alluded to, is of a curious nature, something like the word "chack-wood, chack-wood, chack-wood, chack-wood," constantly repeated, and having a regular rise and fall in it, which is why I call it a "see-saw note." Sometimes, when the bird is a little way off, it sounds very much like a swishing of the wings; but when these are really swished, as they often are—purposely, I believe, and as a nuptial performance—the difference is at once apparent. "Two snipes will often fly chasing each other, uttering this note, and making from time to time the loud swishing with the wings. Often, too, there will be a short, harsh cry—harsh, but with that wild, loved harshness that lives in the notes of birds that haunt the waste—which is instantly followed by a swishing of the wings, making quite a music in the air. When at its loudest and harshest, this cry, which then becomes a scream, is quite an extraordinary sound, having a mewing intonation in it suggesting a cat as the performer. Yet it is nothing so extraordinary as some notes of the snipe which I have heard, mostly during the winter, and which are indeed—at least they have struck me as being so—amongst the most wonderful that ever issued from the throat of bird. I will recur to them again when I come to the moor-hen (for it was in his company I heard them), a bird that is itself as a whole orchestra of peculiar brazen instruments. These wild cries and screams blend harmoniously with the curious, monotonous, yet musical bleating, and come finely out of the gloom of the evening thickening into night, as it descends over the wide expanse of the fenlands. Best heard then—and there: the darkening sky, the wide and wind-swept waste of coarse tufted grass, amongst which brown dock-stalks stand tall-ly and thinly, the long, raised bank with its thin belt of reeds beyond, emphasising rather than relieving the flatness, the lonely thorn-bush, the stunted willow or two, the black line of alders marking the course of the sluggish river, the wind, the sad whispered music in the grasses, the wilder music in the air, the aloneness, the drearness—such voices fit such scenes."
The male and female snipe both bleat, but the feathers in the tail which produce the sound are less modified in the female, and the sound which they produce is said to be different in consequence. That there must be a difference would seem to follow of necessity; but, according to my own experience, it requires a nice ear to distinguish the bleating of the one sex from that of the other. There is, indeed, some slight difference in the sound made by each individual snipe, but I only once remember hearing one bleating with a markedly different tone. Here the sound had a lower, softer, and deeper intonation, and was, to my mind, a more musical sound altogether. When heard just before or after the bleat of another snipe the difference was very marked, but I considered it to be rather an individual than a sexual distinction, for I do not know that there is any reason to suppose that the female snipe bleats less frequently than the male except when she is sitting on her eggs.
Snipe, when bleating, fly round and round in a wide irregular circle, and for a long time one will not overstep the invisible boundary so as to encroach upon the domain of the other. It seems—but the illusion will be broken after a time—as though each bird had his allotment in the fields of air and knew that he would be guilty of a rudeness in entering that of another. Thus, though three or four of them may be flying and bleating in the neighbourhood, it is often difficult to watch more than one at a time with anything like closeness of observation, a difficulty which is often increased by the failing light; for, in my own experience, snipe bleat best either in the early—though not very early—morning, or when evening has begun to close in. To follow their wide, swift, eccentric circle of flight one must keep turning round on a fixed point, and this, amidst swamp and grass-tufts, is difficult to do without losing one's balance. Yet still one watches and turns and strains one's eyes into the darkness, unable to go, for one loves to see that small, swift, vocal shadow appearing out of the great, still, silent ones and disappearing, again, into them. When thus disporting, each within its own charmed circle, the downward rush and bleat of one snipe will often for a long time immediately precede or follow that of another, bleat answering to bleat, till at length the duet is broken and complicated by a third intermingling voice. At last a bird, trampling on etiquette, will flit into the circle of the one you are watching, and the two, excitedly pursuing each other with "chack-wood, chack-wood," or, with the harsh, wild scream and loud swish of pinions, will speed off and vanish together.
No doubt the male snipes bleat against each other in rivalry, but it would also seem (a sentence, I confess, which I never use when I have an undoubted instance to give) that the male and female bleat to one another connubially, or in a lover-like manner. Here, however, is an instance (as I translate it) of the one bleating whilst the other sits listening and responding vocally on the ground.
"A snipe flies with a scream over the marshy meadows. As he passes one little swampy bit another snipe utters from out of it the see-sawey, 'chack-wood' note, in answer, as it appears, to the scream. The first snipe now flies round about over the meadows and land adjoining, bleating, whilst the other one in the grass continues to see-saw."
Many birds, as is well known, have the instinct, when suddenly discovered with their young ones, of tumbling over or fluttering along the ground as though they had sustained some injury which had rendered them unable to fly, so that the murderous or thievish longings of "the