Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/206

1372 magpie that had undergone metamorphosis ; and once a bird, was now a vox, et præterca nihil. (Vide Ovid). I threw a stone, not at the place whence the sound seemed to issue, but at one of them ; my mysterious friend took the hint, — he disclosed himself and de- parted. Erupit, evasit. On another occasion, about the same time, I was walking along a road, on the left of which was a wheat-field, and at the bottom of the field a pond, which I knew to be tenanted by divers moorhens : about fifty yards above the gate out of the road into the fields, and three hundred yards from the pond, I heard the note or cry of the moorhen ; I was convinced the bird was within twenty or thirty yards of me, or rather, it never entered my mind that it was not. I therefore went quietly and cautiously to the gate, and thought I should most likely be able to see the bird, supposing it was likely to be moving towards the pond. On reaching the gate, the sound seemed to come from a point twenty yards lower down the field ; I waited some minutes, still it came from this same point, I moved on, it kept apparently at about the same distance before me. When I stopped, it stopped too ; I mean it seem- ed to come during each halt from one and the same spot, about twenty yards in ad- vance of me. When at length, I got to the pond there was the bird, moving about at its leisure, croaking away in the same measured manner as it had been doing for the last twenty minutes, and not appearing at all conscious that its unmusical note had any- thing in it capable of interesting even a wandering naturalist. The bird was at the pond, unquestionably when I first heard it, and I suppose had never moved ten yards from it all the while I had been listening and watching. And yet at first, as at every successive period, I could have sworn it was within thirty yards of me. Again, there is a similar peculiarity at times, at least, in the note emitted by the snipe in the spring, or breeding season. And I infer from Mr. W. Bree's note (Zool. 1066) alluded to by Mr. Cooper, (Zool. 1192) that he was imposed upon, as I was the first time I ever heard the sound. I transcribe my note, made some ten years since. "The so-called bleat- ing or drumming of the snipe in the breeding season, appears to me more to resemble the buzzing of a large bee ; so much so, that the first time T heard it, I began to look for the bee which I supposed was making the noise. I thought it had become in some manner entangled in the grass, and a long while did I seek in vain. I remember on subsequent occasions also, its notes seemed very closely to resemble the buzzing of a bee. When the snipe emitted the sound, it was descending in a sort of a curve, mov- ing its wings very rapidly." (Zool. 1192). When the sound ceased, it had begun to ascend again, in a continuation of the same curve. "The keeper," referred to by Mr. Bree was unquestionably correct in the information he furnished. And Mr. Bree was unquestionably impressed with the conviction that the sound he heard was produced on the ground. And hence the snipe may, with great propriety, be set down as a ventrilo- quist. I am sure I never doubted for a long time, but that the sound came from the grass ; and long did I maintain my search, and sorely was I puzzled at not seeing my bee. I may add, when I verified my observations as to the fact, that it was in the air that the bird produced the sound, and as to the peculiar concomitants of the sound, fifty times at least. And also I may add that the snipes were never once seen by me in the pasture, in which, at first, I looked for the bee. Their haunt was in a pool or bog in the warren adjoining the pasture, the pool being one hundred yards distant from the boundary fence. I will give one other instance of a bird's note being produced in one place and seeming to come from another. Walking one day in the neighbourhood of Leeds, I was delighted to hear the note of^one of my great favourites among our songsters, I mean the woodlark. I was surprised at hearing it in that district, but still