During the outward curving, downward flight the snipe's strange humming note is heard, synchronizing precisely with the vibration of the tips of its wings. The bill is closed when the note is being emitted. The bird's great circular flight is thus made up of two subordinate flights--the plain flight and the humming flight--in regular succession. After having described three or four great circles, the snipe reverses its course and proceeds in the opposite direction; but it is to be observed that in its "humming" flight it still works always on its "outer edge," the wing outside the great circle being invariably the one to be depressed and the one upon which the bird turns in performing the tangential, outward curving, downward flight. The sound made by the snipe may be nearly imitated by laughing in the throat with the lips closed, and associates itself in my mind with that made by the puffin when returning laden with fish to his burrow. It is like hollow, mirthless laughter; the expression of a wild earnest joy by sounds which to human ears seem mournful rather than joyous, and therefore unnatural, uncanny, weird. The snipe has another amusing trick in flight; he will suddenly jerk himself to one side, throw his wings halfway back, and allow himself to fall like a lopsided shuttlecock, until, as suddenly recovering himself, he sets off again on his circular career. Seton Gordon (1915) gives the following good description of the snipe's tail, by which the sound is probably made: The tail feathers of the snipe are of so peculiar formation that it may be well to give here a description of them: In the first outer tail feather the shaft is exceptionally stiff and shaped like a saber. The rays of the web are strongly bound together and are very long--the longest, in fact, reaching nearly three-quarters of the whole length of the web. The rays lie along the shaft of the feather like the strings of a musical instrument. Other species of snipe possess four drumming feathers, and one species has no fewer than eight. The drumming feathers of the hen snipe are not as strong as those of the male. _Eggs._--The European snipe normally lays four eggs, rarely five. These are indistinguishable from eggs of our Wilson snipe. The measurements of 100 eggs, furnished by Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain, averaged 39.4 by 28.7 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =42.7= by 29, 39.3 by =30.3=, =35= by 28.4 and 36.3 by =26.7= millimeters. _Young._--The period of incubation is about 20 days. Several observers have reported seeing the snipe carry off her young between her legs, as the woodcock is known to do. Mr. Gordon (1915) writes: