Voices of a New England Marsh 45
free from frost, although for a week or two later they show scarce any trace of green. Indeed at this time they are even more dreary and barren look- ing than in late autumn, for the deep and varied tones of russet which they wore at that season have since bleached to a uniform faded brown, and the once erect, graceful reeds and grasses, broken by the wind and crushed under the weight of the winter's snows, cover the sodden ground and shal- low surface water with melancholy wreckage. Nevertheless the marshes are by no means unattractive at this time. It is good to breathe the soft, moist air laden with those indescribable and pleasingly suggestive odors peculiar to the place and season; and if vegetation is somewhat backward there is no lack of conspicuous animal life and sound. The birds now sing more or less freely throughout the day and at morning and evening with the utmost spirit and abandon. Besides the Blackbirds and Song Sparrows there are numbers of Tree Sparrows up to the middle of the month (when most of them depart for their summer homes at the north) and Swamp Sparrows in abundance after the close of the first week. From this time until midsummer the song of the Swamp Sparrow is one of the most fre— quent and characteristic of the voices of the marsh. It is a rapid, resonant trill suggestive of that of the Chippy but much more spirited and musical.
As soon as the frost is well out of the meadows the Wilson’s Snipe arrive. During the daytime they remain silent and closely hidden among the grass, but just as twilight is falling one may hear the hoarse, rasping flight-call, swipe, swipe, rmipe, repeated by several birds rising in quick succession from different parts of the marsh. Some of them alight again after flying a few hundred yards, but if the evening be calm and mild one or two of the males, filled with the ardor of the approaching love season, will be likely to mount high into the air and begin flying in great circles every now and then pitching earthward, sometimes abruptly and almost vertically, again scarce perceptibly, at each descent making a tremulous humming sound not unlike the winnowing of a domestic Pigeon’s wings but louder or at least more penetrating for it is audible, under favorable conditions, at a distance of nearly a mile. It has at all times a strangely thrilling effect on the listener and when heard directly overhead and without previous warning of the bird’s presence it is positively startling in its weird intensity. It is supposed to be produCed by the air rushing through the Snipe‘s wings dur- ing his swift descent.
In the springtime Snipe produce another peculiar sound, a low, rolling Ink-kuk-kuk-kuk—kuk, evidently vocal and usually given while the bird is standing on the ground although sometimes accompanying a slow, labored and perfectly direct flight at the end of which he alights on a tree or fence post for a'few moments. This, as well as the aerial circling and plunging, may be sometimes witnessed in broad daylight when the weather is stormy,
