while others assert that the noise is produced by the stiff tail feathers; others again that it is uttered by the bird itself. This "bleating" much resembles the booming of a large bee, and has given to the bird several expressive provincial names. To many northern shepherds the noise indicates dry weather and frost. The snipe is an early breeder, and in open seasons its beautiful eggs may be found by March or early April. These are laid in a depression among rushes or aquatic herbage, and have a ground colour of greenish olive, blotched with varying shades of brown. Incubation lasts only a fortnight, and the result of this are young which run as soon as they are hatched, and clothed in an exquisite covering of dappled down. The birds strongly object to any intrusion on their breeding haunts, though this presents a capital opportunity of hearing the peculiar sound already referred to. The male will be seen flying high in circles, and whenever he indulges the remarkable action of his wings in his curving descent the sound proceeds from him. Upon being hatched the young are immediately led to water and the protection of thick and dank herbage. Here, too, food is abundant, which for these tiny things consists of the lowest forms of aquatic life. It is interesting to watch snipe boring for food, and it is surprising what hard ground their admirably-adapted long mobile bills can penetrate. This is an exceedingly sensitive organ however, the outer membrane being underlaid by delicate nerve fibre, which infallibly tells the bird when it touches food, although far hidden from sight. The seeds which are sometimes found in birds of the snipe kind have come there not by being eaten, but attached to some glutinous food, and eaten accidentally.