109
NOTES ON CERTAIN BREEDING HABITS OF
THE SNIPE.
By FREDK. J. STUBBS.
[Read 30th October 1915.]
DURING the past few years, I have found the Common Snipe
to be fairly abundant as a breeding species in the eastern
portion of Essex, and have taken the opportunity of checking
and extending previous observations on the species, made in
other parts of Great Britain. The most remarkable contribution
to our knowledge of the bird and its habits has been described
already in the Zoologist (1912, p. 196-177), but may perhaps
be mentioned in these pages.
On 2nd May 1912, in a large marshy pasture near Passingford
Bridge, I watched a Snipe amusing itself by shooting along for
many yards through the air, on outspread wings, back down-
wards. This extraordinary manoeuvre was repeated again and
again. Subsequently, I observed the same bird going through
the evolutions of "drumming," but taking the usual plunge back
downwards. In the next number of the Zoologist, confirmation
came from three naturalists, Messrs. H. Eliot Howard, J. A.
Harvie-Brown, and Julian S. Huxley, who had, independently,
observed the same curious habit.
Since that date, I have observed this reversed plunging of
a bird high in the air on several occasions, but it has not been my
fortune to see again clearly the strange upside-down horizontal
flight. So far as I know, this last-noticed habit had not been
recorded previously for any bird; but, from an article on the birds
of Anglesea (Zoologist, 1904), two good ornithologists, Messrs.
T. A. Coward and C. Oldham, appear to have seen the
proceeding, although they failed to notice whether or not the
performer was upside down.
The Snipe is a most difficult bird to observe, but I have no
doubt that its acrobatic habits are frequently indulged, and are
well worth patient watching.
The "drumming" of the Snipe is, I suggest, a problem
that is still unsolved. Although sometimes audible at the
distance of a mile, and at every hour of day and night in spring,
and conspicuous in districts where the bird breeds, I have not
yet questioned anyone who had unaided first observed the