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Philohela minor .

Carlisle ,
1379.
April 8.

'

!

i

I

I

i

Mass. Song.

Mr . Robb ins having notified us that the Woodcock were in
full song at Carlisle, Jim and I determined to make a trip
thither for the purpose of hearing them once more. We accord-
ingly selected this evening which hade fair to be a good one
for the purpose. Driving up from Concord we arrived at Mr.
Robbins's a little before sunset . A Woodcock, we found, had
for several evenings past sung directly behind the house,
rising first from a bushy run where I examined a nest in 137- ,
and afterwards lighting in the open field that adjoined the
house. When the sun had fairly set and as the twilight was
beginning to descend, Arthur Robbins came in to tell us that
the Woodcock had already begun to bleat . We accordingly went
out and sure enough at intervals of a half minute or so the
Night -Hawk-1 ike cry came up from the depth of the hollow in
the run. Before the first flight upward began we took our
position on the stone wall that separated the field from the
bushy hollow, and we afterwards found that we could not have
been better posted for at the close of his song our long-
billed friend lit within twenty paces ojS. us and we had an ex-
cellent opportunity to observe all his motions as he sat on
the close-cropped and withered yellowish turf. He repeated
his serenade some six or eight times when it became so dark
that he ceased altogether for that night. Once he lit within

Philohela minor .

Carlisle, Mass.

Song .

1S79. twelve feet of us and went through all his curious notes and

April 8. motions without apparently regarding my presence in the least.

As I have already published some very full notes on this

(No. 2)

curious love song it will not be necessary here to give any
other than a few additional points which the better opportu-
nities of this event recent experiment enabled me to note.

The article referred to appeared in the American Sportsman,
vol.1V, p.19.

When the bird rises into the air its wings whistle stead-
ily as it mounts in a broad spiral course into the dusky heav-
ens. The highest point reached is perhaps three or four hun-
dred feet. It then begins to descend by a series of irregular
erratic plungings, which produce the effect of dividing the
whistling 11 into syllables". The whistling is at this period
especially shrill and loud but is nevertheless unmistakably
produced by the wings. When about one third of the descent
is effected the wings are apparently ( i ) set and the birds
floats evenly and slowly downward line a dusky, ball of thistle
down. Then begins the vocal music, a succession of soft and
exceedingly liquid notes which are accelerated as the author
nears the earth. My original description was perhaps a trifle
overdrawn but still the song is a beautiful one and if it had

Philohela minor .

Carlisle, Mass. Song.

1879. that of any of the true singing birds. I was also again re-

April 8. minded of the boys's water whistle and the resemblance is cer-

( No . 3 ) . tainly an obvious one.

When within about thirty feet of the earth the song is

»

abruptly out short, and with the speed and directness of an

arrow flight the performer glides down on set wings to near

the starting place. Several times when he passed near us the

rush of his wings was very audible. When he first alighted

he stood for a moment in a stooping posture then made a short,

gliding run, stopped and with a preliminary Pt-ur uttered his

his singular cry.

harsh pa-a -p . Then he ran a few steps more and again gave A
After three or four runs he seemed to find a spot to his lin-
ing and would then remain nearly motionless, bleating, however
at intervals of about fifteen seconds, until he again took
flight. Just before each cry his tail was jerked up with an

automaton-1 ike motion, and as the sound followed his head was

throat

suddenly thrown bach and his^percept ibly swelled. Mr. Robb ins
told me that he alighted regularly in nearly the same spot
each evening. Mr.R. also thinks that this nightly song ceases
as soon as the eggs are laid. He has never known it continued
after the light has entirely faded from the western sky except
on one occasion, a moonlight night, when it was protracted
until nearly 9 P.M. With the first faint streaks of dawn it

5 "

Philohela minor

Carlisle, Mass. Song.

1879. is again resumed and continued until broad daylight.

April 8. 7/e heard another Woodcock rise from the run just before

(Uo.4). our songster took his first upward flight. It was probably
the female. And later while the male was bleating in the
open field within a few yards of us a Woodcock passed swiftly
within a few feet of my friend's head.

The course described by the bird while in the air v/ould
cover several acres. He seems fairly to exult in his free
upward wanderings and his descent is one joyous tumult of
ecstatic melody. He looks like a small black ball in the
dusky sky.

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7

1890
May 9 .

Waver ley, Mass.

(LETTER CE WALTER FAXON.) — Many thanks for your kindness in
having the Woodcock story copied for me. My observations tally
exactly with yours, except that the pt-ul was repeated without any
alternating pa-a-p; that is, when I took position within eight
yards of where he came down, he peeped until he (evidently) saw or
heard me, and then said put -1 till he flew away to more removed
ground, where he resumed peeping and soon made another ascent. I
felt assured that the put '1 was a sort of alarm-note, and not a
normal part of his serenade. I am positive that he did not put * 1
atvOther times, when I was so near to him that I coiild not have
missed the note, if uttered. Every time I saw the performance,
the bird in his adeent described a sinistral spiral. The only
evenings when I was sure of the direction of the wind and could
clearly see the bird as he sprung from the ground( two eve nings )
he ros e against the wind. 7 AS I told you, each time he uttered
the put~*T there was a marked movement of the body, apparently, a
throwing back of the head and neck.

After the Woodcock attains his maxirnun hight, he appears to
fly irregularly about for a time without making circles. The music
of the song is much enhanced to my ear by the whistle of the wings
which is heard in the short intervals between the vocal outbursts.

You may be interested in some of my time minutes with your
own : —

April 17. Began to peep, 6.50,p.m. Ceased at 7.20(sunset,
6.28). About ten ascensions.

Peeped, 40s.
Flight, 45 s.

Peeped, 2m , 10s .
Flight, 50

Peeped, 40 s.
Flight, 50 s.
Song last I OS

Peeped, Im. 25 s.
Flight, 45s.

I timed him by the second hand of my watch, and the measure-
ment is not so accurate as you would get with a stop-watch. The
duration of the "song", to speak more precisely, was the time
from the beginning of the vocal notes to the birds reach ing t he
ground .

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/?

Philohela minor.

C*"'

April I3^)Lexington, ^JTo Davis's Hill with Faxon at 6.30 p.m.

Evening clear and. i Mi ther. 60° at sunset, 62® at npon) with light
west wind changing to S .W. just after sunset. The Woodcock began
peeping at 6.44(last night he began at 6.30 and night before
last at 6.40, both of these evenings being cloudy. — Faxon . )

He continued peeping nine minutes before making his first as-
cent, and made in all six ascents. ( fax on noted fifteen as-
cents one evening last week.) Two f lights, which I timed from
the start to the finish, lasted respectively 57 and 59 sec-
onds, the song II and 12 seconds respectively. During the
first ascent I ran to the peeping -pi ace and sat down on the
ground behind a large rock. The bird alighted on a little
knoll covered with reindeer moss just nine paces from me. Theee
was absolutely nothing between us, the rock being in front of
me and the Woodcock on my right. Dor a moment he stood mo-
tionless and silent, then began peeping. I turned one quar-
ter around so as to face him, at the same time raising my
glass. He evidently saw me, for he stopped peeping and ut-
tered the pt-ul a number of times in succession, but soon after
I had settled myself in the new position r he began peeping a-
gain and showed no further signs of alarm or suspicion, for
some time he stood facing the south, his right side turned
squarely towards me, giving me a profile view. The light was
still good and thrown directly upon him(he was to the east
of my position). Through the glass I could distinctly see
his color and markings, the large dark eye; the bill, feet —
in short, every detail of form and plumage. In the intervals
between the notes, his position, outline and the relative
proportions of the different parts presented nothing pecul-
iar. The body was held a little more erect than usual, the
back rounded, the head raised, the bill inclined well down-
ward, the tail depressed and closed, its tip just showing be-
low the ends of the closed wings. There was
the throat, jugulum or breast, no ruffing of
short the bird looked in every way precisely
ventional stuffed Woodcock that one sees in
shops .

At each utterance of the paap the neck was slightly
lengthened, the head thrown upward and b ac kwar d ( much in the
manner of a Least Flycatcher's while singing), the bill
pened wide and raised to a horizontal position, the
jerked out from the body. All these movements were

no inflation of
the plumage. In
like the con-
taxidermists’*

o-

w ings
ab rup t

r

Phi 1 oheTsrr-ma.ngr

2

i 89 1 . Mass .

Apr.il 13. Lexington-* — - and convulsive, indicating consider-
able muse ul ar“”eTi'o"r t on the part of the bird. There was per-
haps also a slight twitching of the tail, but this member was
not perceptibly raised or expanded. The return of the sever-
al parts to their respective normal positions was quite as sud-
den as the initial movements. The forward '^recovery'’’ of the
head was well marked. The opening and shutting of the bill
strongly suggested that of a pair of tongs. During the emis-
sion of the paap the throat swelled and it’s plumage was ruffed
but neither effect was more marked than with any of our small
birds while in the act of singing.

The pt-ul note when closely followed by the paap, as
was usually the case, was not accompanied by any of - the" move-
ments just described, but when, as occasionally happened, the
bird repeated it several times withoiit peeping ,he moved his
head and bill just as when peeping, but to a much less degree.

After a minute or two the Woodcock suddenly turned, and,,
without changing his ground, took a position directly facing
me. Viewed from in front the motions just described produced
a somewhat different impression. The backward toss of the
head was no longer apparent, while the lengthening and short-
ening of the neck became more conspicuous. In fact the head
now seemed to be bobbed up and down, much in the manner of an
Owl's. The movement of the wings was more strongly marked,
and its character and extent could be definitely traced. The
wings were not spread or opened, but merely jrked out from the
body spasmodically. The shoulders showed distinctly for an in-
stant, but the primaries were at all times covered by the long-
overlapping feathers of the flanks and sides. These loose
feathers moved out and in with the wings, giving the body the
appearance of being laterally inflated and then contracted.

The mouth opened to such an extent that I could look directly
down the bird's throat , which appeared large enough to admit
the end of my forefinger. The lateral distention of the mouth
was especially striking.

Wilson Flagg says( Birds and Seasons in New England,
p,333) that the Woodcock while peeping "may be seen strutting
about like a Turkey-cock, with fantastic jerkings of the
tail and a frequent turning of the head." Neither Faxon nor
I have ever seen anything of the kind. Of the contrary, one
of the most marked features of the performance is the fact
that the bird, when not in the act of uttering the sound,
stands perfectly still, and always in about the same attitude.

22 .

3

Philohela minor.

1891 Mass.

iovv

V

Apri I 13. Lexingt en-r 'My subject to-night did not once

vary his attitude nor turn his head e«er so slightly to one
or the other side. It is not uncommon, however, for him to
change his position after peeping a few times by turning part-
ly around and facing in a different direction, and Faxon has
repeatedly seen him move from place to place, over a space
of a few square yards by quick, short runs, stopping to peep
a number of times in succession on the top of each little
mound that lay in his track and facing in different directions
Once to-night he faced all four quarters of the compass in sue-
cession, mak ing a quarter turn each time without changing his
ground. Each change of position produced a marked change in
the sound of his voice. When his back was turned towards me,
the paap sounded muffled and much more distant, while I could
hardly hear the jot-ul at all, although the bird was within
thirty yards. Faxon has seen him descend from the air to ex-
actly the same spot three or four times in succession, but to-
night he alighted in a different place after each flight. F .
thinks that this was because he had seen me the first time. I
had only one good view of him on the ground.
y Faxon to-night devoted his entire attention to studying

the aerial flight. His conclusions are that during the pro-
duction of each set of musi cal (water-whi sties ) notes, the
bird holds his wings extended an d get , whether he be sailing
or pitching down sharply at the time; and further that the
wings invariably move rapidly and continuously in a whirrigl
manner during the intermittant periods of twittering.

This morninggF .'Nfomnd the bird already peeping at 4.15.
He watched him through' one peeping spell at a distance of
feet( measured) from behind a small leafless bush.

April I..

_/ "The Davis Hill Y/oodcock did not show up to-night.
Last night I did not go there. It rained to-night, but I fear
that was/ not the cause of his absense ,"( W. Faxon, Letter Apr.
15— 189 J . )

j / 'h ^ # )

April' 1 7 . Ho .bird peeping at Warren Run* to-night . I now
believe that both this and the Davis\Hill Y/oodcock were mi-
grants . f~

T f \

Oopied 1'ro.m Journ&J.

Xvl assftckuse t cs .
1891 .

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Philohela minor

Concord, Mass. Nest.

A Mr. Dodge who has bought the Dutton farm and who is
familiar with and much interested in the birds of this region
tells me that a pair of Woodcock nested near his house this
season. He found the nest in some bushes birches on the west
side of the Dutton lane. It contained four eggs which he
thinks were safely hatched.

1893 .

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Phil oho la minor .

Breezy Point, Warren , H.H. Peculiar note and

f 1 ight .

1894, On the edge of the maple grove we (W. Faxon and I ) started

June 27. two Woodcock from the side of the road where the mud was cov-
ered with their "borings". When we returned a little later
we heard something making a prolonged wheezy sound very like
that of young Partridges. Faxon went in among the ferns and
flushed a Woodcock, apparently an old bird. A few minutes
afterward two Woodcock shot overhead and out into a great ,
open meadow where they circled at a height of 30 or 40 ft.
appearing and disappearing in the mist, one following the
other closely. I have never seen Woodcock fly in this way
before .

J2

Phil oho la minor .

Breezy point, Warren, N.H. Queer Behavior and Botes.

1S94. After tea Faxon and I walked down the valley again. As

June 28. we approached the sugar maple grove we heard two or more Wood-
cock making the wheezy sound (a lisping tse- e-e-e ) noted last
evening. They seemed to Be just over the fence under the trees,
As v;e were standing still listening a Woodcock, evidently an
old Bird, rose from the spot whence the sound came and crossed
the road and a Bit of open field to the lower grove flying
very slowly and feebly with dangling legs (a very Rail-like
flight) quacking much like a drake Black Duck But less loudly
( quar-quar-quar-quar-quar-quar ) six or eight times. Her wings
made no sound during this flight but when we followed and put
her up again she went off like a Bullet with legs drawn up w
whistling shrilly - a normal flight in every way.

Immediately after her first flight another Woodcock which
we did not see rose and whistled off. The wheezy sound was
heard for a minute or two after this But it soon ceased. We
did not see any other Birds out we assumed that the pair which
flew were adults and that their young were making the wheezing
sound. It was very like the call of a young Partridge. I do
not think that the Birds could have Been aware of our presence
when we first heard them for we ’were concealed By a Belt of
shrubbery and ferns and a rail fence and we approached the

spot quietly.

Philohela minor

Peterborough, hew Hampshire.

1899.

One seen at Temple on the evening of August 20th flying

July

&

August .

from a wooded hillside to a brook meadow. Abbott Thayer tells

me that Woodcock bred abundantly this year in the woods near

his house at Dublin and that early in July his son Gerald saw

one alight twice on the topmost twigs or sprays of some white

pines which were thirty or forty feet high. This happened

during the evening twilight but Gerald saw his bird distinctly

against the sky and is positive that it was a Woodcock.

Concord,

Md s s #

1899.

Looking for the Woodcock in the Barrett run I found him

April 7.

within twenty yards of where he lay on the 5th - the same

small male bird evidently. I wonder if he will remain and

breed here. (1 afterwards learned that during the past week

a Woodcock was heard singing several nights in succession o^er

the brook meadow w. of the Barrett house by both Geo. Holden

and Henry Lawrence. )

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dhusU*

Philohela minor. Woodcock. — A young chick, I think undoubtedly
of this species, was closely observed running on a swamp and tree grown
wood road near Indian Head on the 12th. It took at once to the under-
brush, and from the locality, position of its eye, etc., I felt little doubt of its
proper identification.

Birds of Upper St, John.
Batcheidar.

9y Philohela minor ( Gtn.) Gray. Woodcock. — One seen on Little
River Flats near Grand Falls. At Fort Fairfield we saw a specimen in
the collection of Mr. Frank P. Orcutt, who considered it rare in that
neighborhood. l 'A few breed in the vicinity” of Houlton.

Bull ar.O.Q, 7, July, 1882, p. 151

^t/Ltd ft /Ctrl*'. ,

/ Several instances liave been recorded of

Woodcock having been shot in the month

of December, but they have invariably

proved to be wounded birds, which have

been unable to migrate to their southern

feeding grounds, and which by the succour

of an open Spring have been enabled to

eke out an existence till this late season of GH

the year. — Harold GilbertQ’& O. Vll. Jun, 1882. p.

I can remember when Wilson’s Snipe came here in im-
mense flocks, but about a quarter of a century ago they began to
lessen in numbers, and now they are far from common. Wood-
cock on the other hand, are more plentiful now than they were
fifty years ago. When Pictou County was first settled none were
found here, and in 1830 the first specimen was placed in the mu-
seum of the Academy. From this date they increased rapidly until
about fifteen years ago, when their numbers appeared to decrease,
from what cause I can only conjecture. Almost every season a
few of this species are met with here in March, when the earth’s
surface is frozen and covered deep with snow, excepting in a few /
favored spots, ^ frf -<

QjuiAk . X . I )*-H I ■

Mr. Harry Austin’s record of Woodcock shooting
on Grant Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia ;

August 1, 1884, 16 Woodcock.

“ 1, 1885, 14 “ 1 Snipe.

“ 1, 1886, 21 “ 3 “

“ 1, 1887, 10

August 30, 1886 Col. Clark and Mr. Austin, at the
same place, shot 33 Cock and 11 Partridge.

O.&Q. XJll.Nov. 1088
H'itWu . //aw*y .yj-virifcvi .

He also received from a friend in Kentville, a
Woodcock. No use, Canada must be annexed.

O.&O. XIY.jk*. 1889 p. !H

TwiEfct, funaer Birds of
Prince Bdward Island,

' Philohela minor. American Woodcock. - The sportsmen are ac-
quainted with this bird but it is considered rare. I saw a stuffed specimen
and well recollect the one I shot at I don’t know how many times when I
visited Hunter River in 1876. The country about there is better ^suited to
it than much of the ground visited this time. lhe partiality of th
Woodcock for clean alder swamps still obtains on Prince Edwa.d Island.

Auk

Jali.

lg§§i Pi ^

General Notes,

Motes on Cape Breton Summer Birds.

Francis H. Allen.

Philohela minor. Indian Brook.

Auk XII. Jan. 1896 Pi 00

Birds of Toronto, Ontario.

By James K. Fleming.

Pt.I, Water Birds.

Auk, XXIII, Oct., 1906, p.448.

80. Philohela minor. American Woodcock. — Regular migrant,
not common; April 2 to 29, returning in July (July 10, 1891) and August
(August 17, 1902), and from October 12 to November 5. Earliest record,
March 25, 1893; latest, November 11, 1886. Woodcock may possibly
breed here.

A, .

R y® Beach, N.H.1871.

fUoUlo. .^c^n . _ <&y. 7, /L'l f itye Beach, N.H. 187

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Peterborough, New Hampshire.

1393 . My sportsman (a carpenter, by the name or Shat tuck)

July 5 further informs me that the 7/oodcock breeds here regularly in

to

Aug. 15. limited numbers and tha£ a good many birds are Killed every

autumn in flight time. I think I heard one whistle past the
house on the evening of August uth.

Breezy Point, Warren, N.H.

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rt *. 2^6- ■

Another victim to a northeaster was a Woodcock, one day
late in November* last. This incident was also observed by a
friend, who while passing along one of the streets of Boston,
while a gale was blowing and the snow falling thickly, saw a
Woodcock shoot down the street, borne on the wings of the
wind. The unfortunate bird passed within a few feet of him,
rendering identification certain. Nothing more was heard from
it, so it is probable that it escaped in safety from the city.

« /tt-?

Bull. N.O.O, 8,Jt«y. 1888. p. I6t>.

Fall Migration. Bristol County, Mass.
. 880 . Charles H. A n ctros •

irferfct'. <2"2;-While passing
through a piece of woods bordering on a marsh I
nearly trod upon a Woodcock, which after run

ning a short distance took to flight,

°-&0. XI. Jan. 1886 . D.* 2 '

Birds of Bristol County, Mass.

F, W. Andros

Philohela minor (Gmel.), American Wood-
cock. Summer resident, tolerably common.
Breeds.

0 &0 - xri - Sept- 1887 p.J 3 'g

Limicol ae in Bristol County.

H.F. Dexter, Dartmouth, Maes.

Woodcock, Philohela minor. A common
summer visitor and breeds commonly with
us, as is attested by the broods of young we
llush from under our feet in early May.

Have observed this species as late as De-
cember 10th and as early as March 5th,
thus showing it to be absent but a short time I
from our county.

a &0. XII. Sept. 1887 p.148

Shore Birds of Cape Cod.

John C. Cahoon.

American Woodcock, Philohela minor (Gmel.)

Summer resident. Breeds. Although this bird
is not common in the summer, it is tolerably so
in the spring and autumn flights. Its dates of
arrival are the same as in other portions of
New England. Its habits are pretty well
known, and as it cannot properly be called a
shore bird, I will not take up the space by an
account of them. They have been taken as far-
down towards the end of the Cape as Orleans,
and I have seen borings in corn fields and
flushed one from the edge of a swamp at that
place. Quite a number are shot in the autumn
at Barnstable, and are usually found in pines.

O.&O. XIII, Aug. 1888 p. 12 ?,.

Birds Known to Pass Breeding: Season
nr. Winchendon, Mass. 'Wm. Brewster

4. Philohela minor.

Auk, V, Oct,, 1888, p.389

General Notes,

Stray Notes from Massachusetts.

George H. Mackay.

Philohela minor.— Oakham, Mass., Oct. 15, 1893. Mr. J F. Brown
of Chelsea, Mass., informs me that in company with Mr. John Stone of
Oakham he visited daily the Woodcock grounds in the vicinity of Oak-
ham for fifteen consecutive days, commencing on the above date, but
failed to Arid only a very few birds, although the grounds were extensive.
Mr. Stone has shot over this ground for twenty-five years and this is
the only year in His experience that no defined flight of Woodcock has
been noted by him. From what I have learned I am of the belief that
the flight in Massachusetts passed during the last few days in September
and first few days in October.

1 Auk XI. Jan. 1894 p. 84-85

, _ >viav 4, 1 met H - G - Collins,
Sunday morning, * which h e had just

er, with an injure ^ 08ton . It was quite

id HP 0,1 < ,e — head It had evidently flown
many electric wires which cover the
overhead. Jos. M. Wade.

0 ,&O.XV.Hay.l 890 P.//

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tnrty *. —

There have been some good bags of woodcock killed
lately in the vicinity of Ballardvale, Mass. One was
killed there last week that had but one leg. The bird
had lost one leg by shooting or by some other accident,
but it had healed over nicely, and the bird was in ex-
cellent condition. It is reported that some of the mar-
ket hunters have secured the right to shoot over grounds
in this section, which contain many excellent covers,
and have had the land posted by the owners.

( / ~ . 'Vr v < -i'- frt ,

American Woodcock. One seen on December i and 8 on the edge of a
pool near Arlington Heights.

Q4SkXAa*A\. C-y f

\\*j&yis3 - Auk, XIX, July, 1902 , pl? 3 .

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Woodcock Notes. — I have recently received several interesting dates
regarding the occurrence of the American Woodcock ( Plnlohcla minor)
in Massachusetts. Mr. Edward A. Brigham of Grafton, Mass., infoims
me that he shot a bird several years ago on Christmas Day which was in
excellent condition. Also, that on March 7, 1901, he saw a bird of this
species — the earliest spring date in his'experience. On March 17, 1903,
he put up a fine large bird at the same place. Deputy Thomas L.
Burney of Lynn, Mass., informs me that he has a specimen of a Wood-
cock, which was picked up on Estey St., Lynn, Mass., by Mr. Geo. Wood-
man on Dec. 11, 1902, while still alive, but in an emaciated condition —
George H. Mackay, Boston , Mass. „ -

Ank, XX, Apr., 1903 , p

^d.out^^e_

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There have been some good bags of woodcock killed
lately in the vicinity of Ballardvale, Mass. One was
killed there last week that had but one leg. The bird
had lost one leg by shooting or by some other accident,
but it had healed over nicely, and the bird was in ex-
cellent condition. It is reported that some of the mar-
ket hunters have secured the right to shoot over grounds
in this section, which contain many excellent covers,
and have had the land posted by the owners.

American Woodcock. One seen on December i and 8 on the edge of a
pool near Arlington Heights.

CkyoL^ C. v Auk, XIX, July, 1902 , p.*? 3 .

Woodcock Notes.— I have recently received several interesting dates
regarding the occurrence of the American Woodcock ( Philohela minor)
in Massachusetts. Mr. Edward A. Brigham of Grafton, Mass., informs
me that he shot a bird several years ago on Christmas Day which was in
excellent condition. Also, that on March 7, 1901, he saw a bird of this
species— the earliest spring date in his'experience. On March 17, 1903,
he put up a fine large bird at the same place. Deputy Thomas L.
Burney of Lynn, Mass., informs me that he has a specimen of a Wood-
cock, which was picked up on Estey St., Lynn, Mass., by Mr. Geo. Wood
man on Dec. 11, 1902, while still alive, but in an emaciated condition —
George H. Mackay, Boston, Mass. „ J 2 / 0 ■

Auk, XX, Apr., 1903,

is

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Connecticut, June, 1893,

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write about birds. What Mr. Trumbull writes about birds

is written while in close contact with his subject, he hay-
ing traveled thousands of miles to study some of his
; subjects. Nothing goes forth from his pen but what can
be relied on to the fullest extent. Mr. Trumbull is a close
student of bird life, and his opportune article on the
American woodcock deserves more than a passing notice—
it is a diamond of the first water. A. C. Collins.
Habtfoud, Conn.

3

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Editor Forest and Stream:

Mr. Gurdon Trumbull's article on the “American Wood-
cock” that recently appeared in the Forest and Stream
is one of the most vivacious, concise and beautiful mono-
graphs that ever graced a sportsman’s journal. This is
saying considerable, but it is a fact nevertheless. Mr.
Trumbull is a practical ornithologist — by this I mean one
who does not deal in any guesswork or hearsay evidence,
but one who studiously finds out all the “ whys and where-
fore” himself. He knows how to express his views as a
naturalist so that one need not be a graduate from some
university or college to understand what subject is being
treated. Mr. Trumbull being a sportsman and knowing
the needs of sportsmen, has done more in an ornithologi-
cal way for them than all other writers combined. Mr.
Trumbull’s book, “Names and Portraits of Game Birds,”
possesses more real merit, intrinsic value and common
sense to the square inch than any other work on these
birds ever published. With that work you have no use
for nine dead languages, keys, charts and other entangle-
ments usually dealt in by those who have attempted to
write about birds. What Mr. Trumbull writes about birds

is written while in close contact with his subject, he hay-
ing traveled thousands of miles to study some of his
subjects. Nothing goes forth from his pen but what can
be relied on to the fullest extent. Mr. Trumbull is a close
student of bird life, and his opportune article on the
American woodcock deserves more than a passing notice —
it is a diamond of the first water. A. G. Collins.

Hartford, Conn.

46

Birds of the Adirondack Regioh.

C.H»Merria«i.

143 . Philohela minor (Gmelin) Gray. Woodcock. - Breeds, but

rather rare.

Bull. N. O.O. a, Oct. 1881, P.234

Flew Against the House.— No less than four woodcock
have met death in the same mannner, i. e., flying against
the house; and the last fellow tried it while we were all sit-
ting on the piazza one fine summer evening, “’twixt day-
light and dark”— Zip bang! and poor little longbill was
struggling his life away on the gravel walk at our feet. I
gathered him in, and 1 have him mounted; and a fine bird
he is. The bill was uninjured, but the top of his head was
literally smashed to pieces. The house stands on an
elevation, and is painted a buff color, which may account
for these frequent casualties. It is also located at Bay
Ridge, L. I., on the line of flight of the migration, which
would seem to have something to do with it, as three of the
victims were found late in autumn.— Dick.

'tftnjudr a*vcl

irvt. XX f*#*' UG ’

i. otes, 'Shelter Island, N.Y.

W. W. Worfcbtingrton,

heard
lept a

O.^SO. X. May. 1885. pi w

Birds TlOga Qo, N< Y Aides Loringr.

525. American Woodcock.

Common.

Breeds. Gives the lflrnter great pleasure.

O, &0, XV, Jane, 1890, p.80

Oold’W'eaUier Notes. Stephento'WU.N. Y.

'Last Woodcoclc recorded November 2.
Philohela minor in this locality is doomed
to the same fate as the Ruffed Grouse — ex-
termination — unless given better protection,
or the number of market hunters reduced.

O.&O.V 0 U 8 , April, 1893 p:87

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Albinism and M' la’ ism in North
Americans Birds* Ruthven Deans,

P. minor ^ ^ ^£JtZ

Bull, N, 0.0. 1, April, 1876, p . 23
Undescribed First Plumages, Brewster

117. Fhilohela minor.

Downy stage : chick a few days old. General "ground-color warm buff,
tinged above with ashy. Large areas of rich seal-brown occur upon the
crown, back, and sides of the breast, while spots, blotches, and angular
stripes of a lighter shade of the same color diversify most of the remaining
surface. The throat and central portions of the breast and abdomen are,
however, immaculate. From a specimen in my collection taken at Lexing-
ton, Mass., May, 1869.

First plumage : male. Ground-color above brownish-ashy ; forehead
and broad band around the neck behind immaculate. Crown brownish-
black, crossed by two narrow transverse bands of fulvous. A few of the
scapulars and the feathers of the back generally, with very dark brown
centres. Chin brownish-yellow. Throat and sides of neck brownish-asliy,
paler than that on the upper parts. Rest of the under surface yellowish-
rufous, palest on the breast and body anteriorly, much richer and reddei on
the lower abdominal and anal regions. From a specimen in my cabinet
shot at Cambridge, Mass., July 3, 1872. The plumage above described is
the characteristic one of the young bird in summer. It is worn up to about
the middle of August, when the moult — which with this species is unusu-
ally protracted — takes place. Adults and young moult about the same
time, and with both the wing and tail feathers are changed with the rest
of the plumage. Autumnal specimens are much more richly colored than
spring adults.

*ulL N.O.O, 4, Jan., 1879, p. HH'

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BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT. MONDAY, MAY 16, 1892.

ways justified by the event. In fact, it is for
the interest of most trusts to keep the price
of the product low, in order to avoid in-
viting competition, to placate popular .senti-
ment, and to extend their trade. The aggre-
gation of capital under one executive man-
agement which controls a large plant often
gives a trust the opportunity to lower prices,
to figures even with, or perhaps below, those
that obtained in a period of competition, and
every man concerned knows that the cheaper
the public can buy the more it will buy.
Such is the "platform-,”, to adopt political
parlance, on which the trusts stand to
justify themselves before the country.

The argument for the trusts is reflected in
a communication protesting against Gov-
ernor Brackett’s denunciation, to he found
in another column of today’s Transcript,
which is from the pen of an eminent Boston
lawyer. We find in the New York Sun that
“Matthew Marshall’’ has something to say
very fairly on the general aspect of the trust
question from the mercantile standpoint.
“Matthew Marshall,” we understand, is the
pen name of a well-known financier. His
summing up is expressed in the following
paragraph :

For all this, both combinations of capital
and unions of Workingmen are as distinct
an advance over the guerilla warfare of
competition as it prevailed before they es-
tablished themselves, as the consolidation
of modern civilized society into a few great
nations is an advance beyond the multi-
tude of petty tribes of savages which it has
supplanted. Only we must not he too san-
guine and expect that by any ingenious in-
vention we can extirpate an essential ele-
ment of human nature. So long as the
world is constituted as it is, and men are
what they are, they will strive to get the
better of one another, and the most we can
do is to secure the greatest possible benefit
from that strife with the least injury.

By the last words it is evident that from
the mercantile or commercial standpoint the
popular standpoint is in sight all the time.
The popular sentiment is strong against
trusts, and what is the popular sentiment be-
comes in a free country the political senti-
ment. That this is so is made plain by the
eagerness with which prominent leaders in
all parties disavow any sympathy with trusts,
and by the ease with which legislation
against them is enacted. Much of this legis-
lation is nothing more than the firing of
blank cartridges, intended to deceive, but
intended to deceive only the general public.
A good deal of the legislation against the
trusts that is honestly intended is found
inoperative in the end, and must
be inoperative, for it is superseded
by the older law of competition,
which has its roots in human nature, and
which impels men to rush in wherever they
see other men making money, or wherever
they think men are making money. Thus it
follows that trusts are likely to he paralleled
just as railroads have been paralleled. The
political relations of trusts and combinations
to government involves, and must involve,
public agitation, for wherever they are
against corporation laws of the States as the
laws were previous to their organization, the
law must either resist or surrender, and the
latter is an alternative never contemplated
without popular indignation. The further
the development of the trust system pro-
ceeds, the nearer draws on the question of
nationalization of our corporation laws, in
which lurks the possibility of the extension
of the “national” ideas to national owner-
ship of railroads and mines and transporta-
tion interests, from which to manufacturing
interests would be but a short step.

The Board of Aldermen of Cambridge has
coupled as a condition to its grant of authority
to use the trolley system on Harvard Bridge,
that the cars shall run up to the Tremont House
or some equally central point. This is some-
thing of a poser tor the West End, which would
have no objection to filling Tremont street with
cars, if the people of Boston did not protest
against such an occupancy ef the street. A Cam-
bridge paper suggests that there should be an
agitation in favor of widening Court street, in
order that the Bowdoin square cars might run
through to Treaaont street. They would un-
questionably be a great advantage to Cam-
bridge residents and might attract some trade
to Boston which would otherwise not cross
Charles river. But all the agitation possible in
Cambridge could never widen Court street in
Boston. The relations of the two cities are
such at this time as to give no immediate hope
that Court street will he widened, largely for
the benefit of citizens of Cambridge.

It was quite natural that the President of
! Sorosis should object at Chicago to cheap fun
i and belittling reports of the meeting of the fed-
i eration of women. Boys who have few ideas be-
I yond their pencils are sometimes sent by sensa-
Ltional journals for the purpose of making “tak-
ling” reports of large meetings of women. They
i have done their work well when they havu
? told the color of the dresses of the women who
! read the papers, or describe any small peculiar-
| ities of speech or manner. It is probable that
' Mrs. Lozier’s indignation was directed not
I against reporters in general, but against the
abusos of the reporters. Most of the women en-
i gaged in these conventions are deeply in earn-
f est in regard to the objects of their societies.

! And to be reported superficially or in a guying
I spirit which takes no note of the underlying
! earnestness is naturally as trying to women as
it would he to men.

The presidential lightning struck in the
[ longitude of Massachusetts and Virginia for !
| many years ; then it struck in the longitude of
i New York and Tennessee for a while. Ohio
| drew the nation’s electric choice times
| enough to make her proud of the phrase “an
Ohio man.” Indiana took her turn. Now
[ Illinois and Iowa are preening their heads in
the direction of the, holt. Iowa is west of
Illinois; but Illinois remembers that she gave
} Lincoln and Grant to the nation in an off time,

| and will not count herself skipped in the line
1 of the presidential lightning if it should strike
| across the Mississippi river for the first time in
the history of the nation.

The Cambridge water front on Charles River,
j between West Boston Bridge and Craigie’s
| Bridge, will certainly be much improved in
( appearance when the stone wall that is being
built shall have been completed. It will not
[ have the ornamental appearance of Charles-
i bank on the Boston side, but it will give the
observer an idea that Cambridge is beginning
to awake to the necessity of making its bank of
[ Charles River more agreeable to the eye than it
; has been of late years.

THE LISTENER.

If you come with the Listener to a certain
• lately-cleared but now bush-grown field not
very far from Boston, on the edge of a large
| wood— a wild spot, stony ana yet not innocent
[ of hogs and muddy places here and there— you
| may hear and see one of the strangest and most
1 delightful of performances. It is the night-flight
and lore-song of the woodcock— that queer,

' uncouth water-bird who has taken to the land;
! whose ugly bull head, short legs, long bill and
[ ungraceful ordinary movements are laughable;

I who is. nevertheless, worshipped by sportsmen;
j who is divine on the table, and who is capable
I of the most remarkable union of grace in move-
f ment and musical utterance, in his one great
j rapturous performance that so few people have
i seen or ever will see.

7"f +

You may see and hear it, that is, if you come
l to the place when the bird is disposed to per-
form, and arrive at the right time, just long
enough after sunset so that the dusk shall
have barely begun to gather, without making
[ it dark as yet. Then you will very likely hear
[ a sharp, grating bird-scund, which at first you
[ take to be the shriek of a night hawk. But it
comes from the level of the ground, and is less
musical, if anything, than the night-hawk’s
[ song. You hear it repeated at intervals,
"Speek, spee-eek> spee-uk” from the ground

not far away. This is the “bleating”
of the woodcock. You listen curiously
while the bird reels off this harsh and
disagreeable soliloquy; perhaps you have
heard that it is preliminary to his much more
interesting performance, and you are impatient
to see and hear that. The sveek is intermitted
for a moment; and then you hear, seemingly
from far away— and yet is it not in your very
ears?— a steady, musical, whistling crescendo
sound. There he goes! The woodcock’s ascent
has begun. Now you see him, rising in a slant-
ing straight line, coming straight over your
bead, his body held stiff and taut, his wings
heating swiftly, his course steadily up and
away ; you fancy he is going to fly away out of
sight; but whilo he is still in plain view, he
veers to the right and begins a long curve or
circle. still upward; and all the while continues
that singular, musical whistling crescendo.

-f- 4~

Now he is fairly launched upon his great
ascending spiral. He rises more and more
swiftly; the note made by his whistle takes a
higher and higher pitch, and the throbs are
closer together. His spiral has at first covered
so wide a space that you have been compelled
to twist your body upon the ground where you
are crouching to keep your eyes upon him ; but
now, as he mounts higher, the circles which he^
is describing become smaller and smaller^
the same time his whistle— one can only call it a
whistle for want of a better word, for the sound
is indescribable— takes a sort of rhythm ; it is
like the rhythm which a person falls into who
is playing scales upon the upper octaves of a
piano so rapidly that he can no longer !
make them sound regular and even. Higher,
higher mounts the bird until he is a mere speck
and yet you can still see the swift beat-
ing of those wings. Now the circles of
his spiral are very small ; he is mad with
ecstacy. For an instant he seems to flutter at
the very apex as if he must die with joy if he
went any further, and yet were unwilling to
descend ; and just at that fluttering instant you
begin to hear a new and still more ecstatic
sound— a soft murmuring note between a whis-
per and a cry— zup-zilp— then the old whistle
begins spasmodically again— the bird flutters
and falls a little— zwp-zwp-zwp— -that soft, deli-
cious, intensely musical note is repeated — the
bird seems to tip downward sidewise slowly,
reluctantly— the whistle and the other wonder-
ful note begin to sound simultaneously; and as
the bird sinks and falls faster and faster from
his height, he gives himself up in a melancholy
rapture to this steadily repeated sound ; and now
he drops, limp and quite silent, and so swiftly
that you fancy he must be hurt, straight to the
very spot in the field from which he went up ;
and in another moment you hear once more the
harsh call : Spee-eek—speek—spee-uk!

■4 - -j- -J-

It is indeed a fall from the sublime to the
ridiculous. Here he is grating, squeaking away ;
again on the earth— this bird which but the
moment before had been rapt in an aerial
ecstacy. He keeps it up for two or three minutes
at least— a longer time, probably, than he has
spent in his musical flight ; for, though you were
too much excited while the performance lasted
to take any note of time, it is probably not
longer than a minute and a half. But he does
not “bleat” very long. Once more you hear
that vague whistle, far away and yet so near,
and you know he is mounting again; once
more he shoots straight over vour head; and
again he is mounting his ecstatic spiral— accel-
erating, climbing the musical scale as well as
the vault of heaven ; his whistle getting all the
weird effect of a sound coming from high in the
air, and yet becoming more clearly to he
heard as the creature goes up. Once more the
attainment of the apex, once more that deli-
cious reluctance to return to earth, once more !
that most musical-melancholy whispering,
once more the drop straight to earth and the re-
commencement of. the harsh quacking refrain
there. By and by he goes up again; and
you listen and watch, enchanted, until,
with the increasing darkness, and the height of
his ascent, you lose sight of the bird, and
his performance is to the ear only— a voice and
nothing more— and yet the more intensely
weird because you cannot see whence it comes.
Very likely the performance is repeated seven
or eight times. You wonder that the little ]
bird can find the strength to make such a series
of tremendous flights; and while you are won-
dering, and incidentally listening to a whip- |
poor-will who is singing a loud complain^from
the edge of the woods close by, you become
aware that the speek, svee-eek is no longer j
sounding ; and you listen in vain for any far-
ther music from vour woodcock.

4-4 — h

But unless you are a dull sort of person you
carry the singular music home with you and {
hear it again and again, and wonder at it, as i
you lie in bed. Never, you think, was utter ^
rapture so completely expressed at once in ac-
tion and in sound. You wonder, as everybody j
has done who has heard the sound and seen the j
sight, how the whistling is produced— whether j
it is the swift rushing of the bird’s wings or £
song from his throat. You fancy that it must j
he done with his wings, because it seems im-
possible that the creature could fly with such \
force and sing all the time. But the descend-
ing zilp zup— that is surely done with the throat,
for you have heard the whistling, like an ac-
companiment or obbligato in it, at least apart of
the time. Its musical quality is as unquestion- j
able as it is indescribable; and somehow it
seems to you as much a miracle as it would ?
seem to hear a swan sing. Rather more, in- j
deed, for the swan on the water is always beau-
tiful at least, and the woodcock is never beau- j
tiful. —

The Singing of Birds. E.P.Bicknell,

Philohela minor. Woodcock.

Although the aerial manoeuvres of the Woodcock at dusk and
in the dark are, freely speaking, familiar to us all, in a stricter

sense there is still a prevailing ignorance in regard to them . e wing began to move again T h

My journal supplies the following, slightly adapted, under j^o produce any form of whf stkn^of^f 0 ^
date of April 19, 1884: The birds would start up from amid the facts im presume lone

shrubbery with a tremulous whirring sound of the wings, rising l 3 ; throughout all its chf nges oTrnoltm^? lfef tbat
with spiral course into the air. The spiral varied considerably

7 last letter Tn“ e L.^ e , ex Periences de-

in pitch, sometimes expanding to sweep far out over a neighbor- in my last letter. The sound

^ . - . 1*1 1 lllTflJi AX T rl 1 rtk T 1— -111 . -

ing field, when a single revolution would carry the bird upward

lan the last,

understand wily the t0 the

rith normal vJJXZ ^i e ± ww S^ay

birds whichTheld byTbeHu”" 1 made . b T the

mg neiu, wnen a smgic icvumnu,. — ihat made by other wounded P ^ Cmely the

almost to the extremity of its flight, which was sometimes directly ip up ahead of a dog and attempt ffl 1 1 have
over the point of departure. The rapid trilling sound with which ilThavIbeen mS not se ™ Possible

it started oft', as Woodcocks do, continued without interruption 1 made by the form!” whife bf ® r a igin f of the
during the ascent, but gradually became more rapid, and as the dI t0 understand wW «... , peo to the

bird neared its greatest height passed into pulsations of quaver-
ing sound. Each pulsation was shorter and faster the
and took the tremolo to a high

whir of fine machinery, or suggesting in movement the acvuu- vocal, why' is' the"' ''7 a "'; Moreover, if the
ating rhythmic sound of a railway-car gradually gaining full speed fe moult? As already ' stoma, ne“r
after a stop. At last, when it seemed as if greater rapidity of ut- th e .“ w histling < ‘quilk” V to

terance was not possible, the vertex of the flight would be reached, ight or after being wounded mdwhen’tf in 6
and, descending with increasing swiftness, the bird would break , . lyl “ S

forth into an irregular chippering — almost a warble — the notes other birds, it* utte^wherfwounded^ 0 *

sounding louder and more liquid as it neared the earth. Suddenly T one ,,;' 3 “ i l t3 to he vocal, should furnislTL
- arhngdnecUy onthe case of the woodcock.

gher pitch, sounding like a throbbing tie wing acTuall^Tnrn ' S a Vain attempt to

■ - cccelcr- ii'MS

there would be silence, and a small dark object would dart past tot be Quite ca ® e . the woodcc

.. i- a. J.J :J V, if 1 ^ that because the

Then, at silent in- a flying inaliax ? d or black duck fa unquestion-

* *-f i£ 3 «Stt=! as-w ss»

through the dusk down amid the shrubbery.

tervals, a single strange and rather startling note — a loua, snarp j en eye’s wings must be also "vocal?'
and somewhat nasal speat or spneat — which sounded as if de- including, however, I would say that while I
livered with a spiteful directness at some offensive object. ; g and 1 twittering °which ^ r * 0U8 mod l dcat; ions

I had no means of estimating the height of the bird’s ascent, S are produced by its narro^stflfened 18 ^' 8
but in the evening dusk it went up almost out of sight. ^ some of these^sounds understood as denying

This performance I have heard at midnight on the bird’s nistaken about a compjuatively ' simplethi S °
arrival in spring. It is also said to take place in the early morn Cult to seUlf! ncR dix-oKr „ * - - ■ ■ g ’

Is it ever indulged in the autumn ?

26 /-X<b$.

msf.

7WY SA.

M-WXW

»»irp.lr 3

Auk, 2, July, 1885. P

'iituml fiztorg.

•

THE WOODCOCK’S WHISTLE.

Editor Forest and Stream:

Will you kindly allow me a little more space in which
to answ.r the arguments that you advance in support of
your belief that the whistle of the woodcock is a vocal
noise, and not made by the bird’s wings?

You discriminate between the sound which the bird
makes in rising, “which might perhaps be called a whis-
tle, ’ and which you admit is produced by the wings, and
a “well-known ringing note” which you compare to the
twitter of the kingbird. I am perfectly well aware that
the woodcock’s whistle varies considerably in form and
perhaps slightly in tone, also at different times, but to
my ear it does not vary to anything like the degree that
the_ scaipe of the WiLon’s snipe varies from the slight
whistbng which the latter bird sometimes makes with its
wings. With the woodcock the variations have seemed
to me to be distinctly correlated with different phases of
fl'-ht. Thus I have observed that when the bird beats its
wings vigoi ously, rapidly and evenly, its whistle is clear,
shrill, and practically continuou-; wtien the wing heats
are slow and languid, the whistle becomes feebler and
less resonant; when they are intermittent it is divided
into distinct syllables or set of s\ llables, which, as you say
sometimes suggest the twitter of the kingbird. I have
frequently seen a woodcock, after flying some distance,
scale downward on set wings as if about to alight, and
then, apparently changing its intention, turn sharply
upward, at the same time resuming its flapping. In such
cases the whistling has invariably ceased during the inter-
val of sailing, and quite as invariably has been renewed

7 ** v/uiupdJi

!rfem ofTh t ! e ro P ° S ) itiV ?‘ y a poult as ^usiVels
irigmot the woodcock’s whistling, that lam

n n 4 t fcb d fl , is th r a n t if 16 [-“--aytestiban
Strf!m tin •* b< T- hoped ’ the readers of

f “7 - sr

iVlftSSi

uanor Forest and Stream:

Your ai tides on the woodcock ha vp infovucfori

w^B^rgjropt^ b r th r ur8elf

although for many years 1 was I doubter
lowing occurrence settled it in my mind ’ One
1 ate in the autumn, having verv shVhtlir7r^Vj < ^i' y fltute
feathered, large fall hfld J rllfevedbrn^T' 16 ! , a i ul1 '
the dog touch it. As I wKfldta* 1“ ^ lf tCb fl mf
companion said, “Hear it whistle ”
the bill lengthwise, between mvib li, ^ Ij ? laced
Mding it tightly the whole le“glh whene ver if 1"^
which I let it do several times before P; n ~ 1 v flut j ered )
twittering whistle so pecuhirto^thfw^dlo^k^ha?
certainly was proof positive As W . i,,. ° ac c ’ r that
sfler it the same as the whirring sound of tCmiafl 00 "^
grouse, viz., rapid motion of the wing! canseH me-
Qipte often after flushing a woodcock and^Jlf frl | h - fc-
some distance away, when shot at and Sifrj 1 ls
hear the same whistle caused L , 11, kl iL ed ’ we

aition.l fright.t ,i. :mSTi£\Z a orPl,PS,£
shot passing near ; not a poetical but certainly a tactical
reason I hope these articles will cause sportsmen to h!
more observing, and that new facts as regards ?!?- ™
eccentric btrd may he brought to light. 8 this very
Saoem, Mass. vv '

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Stories of "Woodcocks. “"Woodcock are
nearly as well known but not so plentiful
as the snipe, to which they bear a strong re-
semblance,” said a well-known sportsman.
“One peculiarity of the bird is that during
their migration they fly at a, great altitude
and when directly above the feeding grounds
descend almost perpendicularly. The birds
fly in companies and prefer hazy, calm
weather for their journeys The-color of the
bird is brown, mottled on the back with little
Alack spots. ’ The bill of the bird resembles
a snipe very much, being about three inches
long of a bony structure and covered with
tough skin. 'When the bird is feeding it
spurts along through the marshes and by in-
stinct seems to know where a worm is locat-
ed for without any other preparation what-
ever it runs its long hill in the soft earth and
draws out a worm on its long barbed tongue.

“I have heard many stories about how the
woodcock finds worms,” continued the hun-
ter, as lie took a long "puff at Ins cigar, but
about the funniest one X ever heard was that
told bv an old Charles County farmer. He
held that the bird, after boring several holes
in the ground, would rush over them with
wings drooped so as to scrape the ground.
This he said, produced a sound similar to
that of rain, and the worms, thinking that it
was raining, would come out of the holes,
when the woodcock would grab them.
There is one peculiarity of the bird that I
have failed to mention, and that is its secret-

Mr*. J.S

and stream.

ODCOCK’S WHISTLE.

have read for a long time has inter-
luoh as Mr. Trumbull’s account of his
It certainly deserves the encomium
ti it editorially, for it is a fascinating
mportant piece of evidence. Never-
nk you justified in saying that it
illy dispose of the vexed question as
i whistles,” or in assuming that those
ie ground that the sound is made by
■ proved to be wholly in the wrong,
true, appears to entertain the same
>s positive, and his article affords in-
:i that his conclusions are not wholly
srvations on which they rest or that
press these conclusions with entire

on.

have failed to mention, ana mar is ns secret- kys in one place that the vocal notes
iveness, and there are very few hunters who [g e the whistling of ducks wmgs as
have ever found the nest of a woodcock. j b j g companion, Mr. Marchant, into
During the breeding season the bird utters a , -

peculiar sound, which resembles something ^
like ‘kwank.’ „ , . , , r

“I have seen the bird when m the act ot
emitting this sound and I was struck with
thepeculiar posvETon he got himself into.

He seemed to exert himself to produce this
note to his utmost capacity ; his head was in-
clined toward the ground and he made a
strong forward movement of his body simul-
taneously with the emission of the sound ;
then he listened and repeated the sound
again. The birds are of a fine flavor and
much prized by epicures throughout the
world. The way I hunt them is with a cocker
spaniel. You know these species of dogs
can go through any amount of tangled un-

° -i. a . nkAiild TvrmnnA mmsttlt

lucks were passing over at the time;
ragraph of his article he affirms that
•twitters’ he squeals, pipes, squeaks,
s,” and adds, “The sound made in
ings of this and other species— many
mple — is perhaps more appropriately
Again, while asserting quite posi-
nt connections that he, as well as
vere fortunate enough to participate
were convinced that some of the
itical with those made by free birds
it, he admits that they “were seldom
is those of the flushed bird, nor were
those heard in the cover. Yet at
ire was at least one squeaky enough

l ii.„ «rr/v iiMivn liatoriirto'

derbrush. A man should provide himself near ly the sound we were listening
with a pair of wat ® r P^" f i like it to convince any doubter who

»t that a flushed cock ‘calks with his

inv sound. A sportsman must he a good _ . „

shot to hag them, for they are up and gone ion to these passages m any spirit or
before you have time to think. The season with the least intention of discredit-
does not last long, for on the first approach to w hi c h they relate, but simply be-
of hard weather the birds migrate, although mg f urn j s h g0 me grounds for sus-
I have seen woodcock throughout a mild mbu ip s observations have not proved
winter. [Washington §tar. /7H0 7 rel l ag y0Uj Mr. Editor, seem disposed

t0 In 'ale’tter that appeared in the issue of Forest and
Stream, for Aug. 22, 1889, 1 called attention to the marked
variation of the woodcock’s whistle, and, in concluding,
said- “That while I believe most firmly that all the vari-
ous modifications of whistling and twittering which the
woodcock makes while flying are produced by the nar-
row, stiffened primary quills, I do not wish to be under-
stood as denying that at least some of these sounds may
be vocal.” I confess that these words were added at the
close of my letter more with some vague idea of guard-
ing against possible error than from any real expectation
that they might come true; but during the two shooting
seasons that have passed since they were written I have
been struck repeatedly by the apparent vocal quality ot
some of the sounds accompanying a woodcock s flight,
and more than once have felt strong suspicions that my
original position in the matter might be partly wrong.
Mr. Trumbull has now shown conclusively that it was
partly wrong, for I no longer doubt that some at least
of the sounds which I believe to be made by the wings
are really vocal. But has he proved that all are vocal?
What becomes of the testimony of those of us who have
held slightly wounded birds by the bill and heard the
rimring sounds bf the flushed cock coming directly and
unmistakably (as we have thought) from the beating pin-
ions; at first, as the wings moved rapidly and vigorously,
in a coutinous silvery trill, then, as the bird became tired
and relaxed its efforts, more faintly and disconnectedly,
each note exactly accompanying a downward stroke ot
the wing Were our birds also “talking with their
mouths” and deluding us the while by idle pantomime?
XVhat moreover, can be the function of the attenuated
primaries (I suppose we may no longer call them whistling
quills)’ How does Mr. Trumbull explain the fact (at-
tested by several good observers) that moulting woodcock
who lack these quills never whistle, and the still more
significant fact (which I have noted repeatedly, especially
during the last two seasons) that birds which have nearly
finished the moult and have the stiffened primaries nearly
but not quite fully grown whistle move fdiutly than do
birds in perfect plumage? Is the woodcock dumb when
moulting and does he afterward graduate his vocal twit-
ter in nice accord with the different stages of growth of
his curious primary quills?

These and similar questions have occurred to me m
thinking over Mr. Trumbull’s testimony. I do not see
how they can be answered if we must conclude that Mr.
Trumbull is wholly right and we of the other side wholly
wrong. It is as if some high authority on dogs were to
assert that pointers and setters depend wholly on their
sense of hearing in searching for game, and m proof ot
such assertion were to narrate a series of the most con-
vincing experiments. A dog was first hunted with his
eves and nose bandaged in such a way that it was impos-
sible for him to see or smell anything. He made a num-
ber of staunch points and was observed to pause and
listen attentively while drawing on his birds. When
pointing there was a slight but significant raising and
lowering of the ears. Then his nose and eyes were freed
and his ears stuffed tightly. While in this condition he
ran over bird after bird and evinced unmistakable sur-
prise and disgust at flushing them. None of the motions
of the nose or lips which have been mentioned by writers
as accompanying the act of drawing on game were de-
tected, although they were carefully looked for. it was
ascertained, however, that the nose was of some use m
finding a piece of meat. These experiments were made
in the presence of a number of well-known sportsmen, all
of whom expressed astonishment at the result, but
acknowledged it no longer possible to deny .that a dog
discovers the presence of game solely by his sense of

Such* a comparison may seem absurd on first thought,
but is it really so after serious consideration? In the two
cases there is of course this difference; the dog has been
so long and closely associated with man that the precise
nature of the functions performed by his eyes, nose ana

4B8

ears may be assumed to be very perfectly understood,
whereas, the woodcock, despite the fact that it is so
generally hunted, is certainly known intimately but to
few, if indeed to any one. Nevertheless I confess I am
almost as ready to believe that my pointer’s nose is a
mere ornamental appendage and that I have to thank his
keenness of hearing for the many birds that he has
enabled me to bag, as I am to credit the assumption that
the woodcock’s attenuated primaries are used merely to
produce sounds similar to those “made by many kinds ot
birds,” and that a flushed cock talks only “with his
mouth.” I admit that dogs are occasionally guided in
the direction of a bird by some noise that it makes and
that at times they point game which they see but do not
smell; but I have abundant proofs that scent is the faculty
on which they chiefly depend. ...

So with the woodcock I have had experiences which
have convinced me that the sound ordinarily made by the
rising bird is produced by the wings. Mr. Trumbull, on
the other hand, has heard this sound or something very
like it given by a captive woodcock which, at the time,
was standing on the ground with its wings tightly closed
and which accompanied the notes by a slight but evident
movement of its throat or breast. Sure of the correctness
of his own impressions he not unnaturally concludes that
the senses of other observers must have deceived them,
and accordingly passes over their testimony in silence m
drawing his final conclusions. If it must be admitted
that the sounds which he has shown to be vocal are iden-
tical with those which some of us believe we have traced
to the wings, the question is indeed settled, for, however
good our proofs, Mr. Trumbull’s are obviously better, and
it is idle to claim that the same sounds are produced in
radically different ways. But may there not be two
sounds seemingly much alike but really of different
character and origin?

It becomes evident on close reading of Mr. Irumbull s
article that he is not quite sure of his identification
of these vocal notes; in other words he hesitates to
assert that they were positively the same as those
of the flushed bird. They “were seldom so loud or
energetic * * * nor were most of them like those
heard in the cover,” but were sufficiently similar “to be
regarded as very nearly the sound we were listening tor,
while others “seemed absolute reproductions of those of
the flushed bird as we remember them; it is, of course,
impossible to recall them literally enough for nice com-
parison, no matter how often they have thrilled us. In
any ordinary case the very frankness of these admissions
would prevent the critic from using them against a writer
who shows such evident determination to be entirely fair
and accurate at possible expense to his argument, and it
would be manifestly unwarrantable to claim that riie
mere opinions of an ornithologist and sportsman .of Mr.
Trumbull’s standing and experience are not entitled to
much weight.

But the case is not an ordinary one, and the entire con-
fidence which otherwise might be reposed in Mr. Trum-
bull’s convictions must be more or less affected by the
fact that other sportsmen have recorded directly opposite
convictions based on evidence which cannot be lightly
disregarded. In this connection it also seems fair to in-
sist that if the importance of a direct comparison of
sounds be conceded, the advantage lies with the support-
erg — perhaps I should now say the defenders— of the wing
theory for their experiments have been made in the
covers' and immediately after listening to the sound of
the flushed bird. As far as my personal experiences of
this kind are concerned, I will say that I have no doubts
whatever that the sound made by the wounded bird as I
held it in my hand was identical with that which it had
given on rising only a minute or two before. It may be
objected that I was deceived as to the origin of this
sound, even although I held the bird within a few inches
of mv face. I admit that this is possible, but it is not to
mv mind more probable than that Mr. Trumbull was also
deceived, and that bis captive really made its various
twitters, squeaks and murmurs by an undetected rubbing
together or “stridulation” of its stiffened primary quills—
a theory which I am not, of course, disposed to maintain.

What I do maintain is simply this, that some of Mr.
Trumbull’s conclusions relating to the flight sounds of
the woodcock are not satisfactorily proven by his own
observations, while they are directly negatived by the
experience of certain other sportsmen, whose testimony
should not be arbitrarily dismissed. If, however, it can
be shown that some of these conclusions have been a
trifle too broadly drawn and that Mr. Trumbull, m com-
mon with others who have written on the subject, has
fallen into error in supposing that all the characteristic
flights of the woodcock are produced in the same way,
most of the difficulties of the case will at once disappear.
In other words, why may it not be that the “twitter as-
certained by Mr. Trumbull to be vocal has m some of its
variations so strong a resemblance to a twitter -like
whistle made by the wings that the two have been gen-
erally, if not universally, confused by ornithologists and

SP At firs^thought this suggestion may not seem to differ
materially from that advanced in the closing paragraph
of Mr. Trumbull’s article; but Mr. Trumbull apparently
indorses the idea expressed in his quotation from Trank
Forrester that the “twitter” and “whistle are habitually
given simultaneously by birds of perfect plumage, and in
this and other connections he distinctly implies that the
“whistle” is at best a slight and in no way characteristic
sound, and that it is usually drowned by the vocal note,
the latter being the sound ordinarily heard from a rising

W Now°what I have found to be the characteristic sound
of a full-feathered woodcock on rising and afterward
during vigorous, protracted flight is a clear, continuous,
pulsating whistle closely similar to that made by the wmgs
of certain ducks, but louder (perhaps because the wood-
cock is usually nearer than ducks are apt to be) and rather
more silvery and musical in tone. It is not subject, so
far as I have observed, to marked modifications of tone,
but the pulsations vary in distinctness with the speed at
which the bird is moving. In very rapid flight they are
often so run together as to be inappreciable. This whistle I
believe to be made by the wings, or rather by the well known
specialized outer primaries. I have never heard it from
a bird which lacked these quills, nor on the other hand
have I known a bird in which they proved to be fully
developed rise in the ordinary manner without whistling,
although a crafty old cock will not infrequently steal off
close to the ground, moving its wmgs m a peculiar quiv-

Drake was struck by lij

together with two horse

amount of hay. Twoh
were saved. Loss esti.
ning struck the barn of
cy Point, damaging a
pigs. Several people
stunned by the bolts.

At Waltham a bolt st
house owned by Chai
Adams and Ash strei
badly crac ked.

another electr

A Maine W oman
Tremon

There was another
last night. It happei
The police say that
Freeport, Me., while
mont street, near Ma
and carried some feel
north, the number of
She was picked up by
and hastily conveyed t
eral Hospital in a her
her injuries were fou
scalp wound on left i
tiple bruises.

The condition ol.tr
jured by the electric-i
avenue Monday aftern
day. John Baxter is
doctors think that Joh

£4' /KM. 3-ViV

FOREST AND STREAM.

483

latimil Jjiztory.

THE WOODCOCK’S WHISTLE.

SENT TO THE

Sentences Impose
Superior Cj

In the Superior Cr
Judge Thompson sent
seven years in State pi
killing Michael Hale
June 26.

Edwin Richardson, f
the tailor shop of
place, April 22, was
State prison. Richard
years’ sentence, havin
bridge a short time a
committed in Somerv

Dr. Edward de la Gi
saulting police Lieut
cane at Station 5 on M

N OTHING that I have read for a long time has inter-
ested me so much as Mr. Trumbull’s account of his
captive woodcock. It certainly deserves the encomium
which you bestow on it editorially, for it is a fascinating
story as well as an important piece of evidence. Never-
theless, I cannot think you justified in saying that it
“would seem to finally dispose of the vexed question as
to how the woodcock whistles,” or in assuming that those
“who have taken the ground that the sound is made by
the wings” are now proved to be wholly in the wrong.

Mr. Trumbull, it is true, appears to entertain the same
opinion, but he is less positive, and his article affords in-
ternal evidence either that his conclusions are not wholly
sustained by the observations on which they rest or that
he has failed to express these conclusions with entire
clearness and precision.

For example, he says in one place that the vocal notes
of his bird were so like the whistling of ducks’ wings as
actually to deceive his companion, Mr. Marchant, into
the belief that wild ducks were passing over at the time;-
yet in the closing paragraph of his article he affirms that
“when a woodcock ‘twitters’ he squeals, pipes, squeaks,
rather than whistles,” and adds, “The sound made m
swift flight by the wings of this and other species— many
of our ducks, for example— is perhaps more appropriately
termed a whistle.” Again, while asserting quite posi-
tively in two different connections that he, as well as
several friends who were fortunate enough to participate
in the observations, were convinced that some of the
vocal notes were identical with those made by free birds
during ordinary flight, he admits that they “were seldom
so loud or energetic as those of the flushed bird, nor were
most of them like those heard in the cover. Yet at
almost every trial there was at least one squeaky enough
to be regarded as very nearly the sound we were listening
for, certainly enough like it to convince any doubter who
happened to be present that a flushed cock ‘calks with his

mouth.’ ” . .

I do not call attention to these passages m any spirit ot
idle controversy, nor with the least intention of discredit-
ing the observations to which they relate, but simply be-
cause they appear to me to furnish some grounds for sus-
pecting that Mr. Trumbull’s observations have not proved
quite all that he, as well as you, Mr. Editor, seem disposed
to claim. . „ _

In a letter that appeared in the issue of Forest and
Stream for Aug. 22, 1889, 1 called attention to the marked
variation of the woodcock’s whistle, and, in concluding,
said: “That while I believe most firmly that all the vari-
ous modifications of whistling and twittering which the
woodcock makes while flying are produced by the nar-
row, stiffened primary quills, I do not wish to be under-
stood as denying that at least some of these sounds may
be vocal.” I confess that these words were added at the
close of my letter more with some vague idea of guard-
ing against possible error than from any real expectation
that they might come true; but during the two shooting
seasons that have passed since they were written I have
been struck repeatedly by the apparent vocal quality of
some of the sounds accompanying a woodcock’s flight,
and more than once have felt strong suspicions that my
original position in the matter might be partly wrong.
Mr. Trumbull has now shown conclusively that it was
partly wrong, for I no longer doubt that some at least
of the sounds which I believe to be made by the wings
are really vocal. But has he proved that all are vocal?
What becomes of the testimony of those of us who have
held slightly wounded birds by the bill and heard the
ringing sounds bf the flushed cock coming directly and
unmistakably (as we have thought) from the beating pin-
ions; at first, as the wings moved rapidly and vigorously,
in a coutinous silvery trill, then, as the bird became tired
and relaxed its efforts, more faintly and disconnectedly,
each note exactly accompanying a downward stroke of
the wing. Were our birds also “talking with their
mouths” and deluding us the while by idle pantomime?
What, moreover, can be the function of the attenuated
primaries (I suppose we may no longer call them whistling
quills)? How does Mr. Trumbull explain the fact (at-
tested by several good observers) that moulting woodcock
who lack these quills never whistle, and the still more
significant fact (which I have noted repeatedly, especially
during the last two seasons) that birds which have nearly
finished the moult and have the stiffened primaries nearly
but not quite fully grown whistle more faintly than do
birds in perfect plumage? Is the woodcock dumb when
moulting and does he afterward graduate his vocal twit-
ter in nice accord with the different stages of growth of
his curious primary quills?

These and similar questions have occurred to me in
thinking over Mr. Trumbull’s testimony. I do not see
how they can be answered if we must conclude that Mr.
Trumbull is wholly right and we of the other side wholly
wrong. It is as if some high authority on dogs were to
assert that pointers and setters depend wholly on their
sense of hearing in searching for game, and m proof of
such assertion were to narrate a series of the most con-
vincing experiments. A dog was first hunted with his
eyes and nose bandaged in such a way that it was impos-
sible for him to see or smell anything. He made a num-
ber of staunch points and was observed to pause and
listen attentively while drawing on his birds. When
pointing there was a slight but significant raising and
lowering of the ears. Then his nose and eyes were freed
and his ears stuffed tightly. While in this condition he
ran over bird after bird and evinced unmistakable sur-
prise and disgust at flushing them. None of the motions
of the nose or lips which have been mentioned by writers
as accompanying the act of drawing on game were de-
tected, although they were carefully looked for. It was
ascertained, however, that the nose was of some use m
finding a piece of meat. These experiments were made
in the presence of a number of well-known sportsmen, all
of whom expressed astonishment at the result, but
acknowledged it no longer possible to deny .that a dog
discovers the presence of game solely by his sense of

^Suclf'a comparison may seem absurd on first thought,
but is it really so after serious consideration? In the two
cases there is of course this difference; the dog has been
so long and closely associated with man that the precise
nature of the functions performed by his eyes, nose and

ears may be assumed to be very perfectly understood;
whereas, the woodcock, despite the fact that it is so
generally hunted, is certainly known intimately but to
few, if indeed to any one. Nevertheless I confess I am
almost as ready to believe that my pointer’s nose is a
mere ornamental appendage and that I have to thank his
keenness of hearing for the many birds that he has
enabled me to bag, as I am to credit the assumption that
the woodcock’s attenuated primaries are used merely to
produce sounds similar to those “made by many kinds of
birds,” and that a flushed cock talks only “with his
mouth.” I admit that dogs are occasionally guided in
the direction of a bird by some noise that it makes and
that at times they point game which they see but do not
smell; but I have abundant proofs that scent is the faculty
on which thev chiefly depend. .

So with the woodcock I have had experiences which
have convinced me that the sound ordinarily made by the
rising bird is produced by the wings. Mr. Trumbull, on
the other hand, has heard this sound or something very
like it given by a captive woodcock which, at the time,
was standing on the ground with its wings tightly closed
and which accompanied the notes by a slight but evident
movement of its throat or breast. Sure of the correctness
of his own impressions he not unnaturally concludes that
the senses of other observers must have deceived them,
and accordingly passes over their testimony in silence in
drawing tiis final conclusions. If it must be admitted
that the sounds which he has shown to be vocal are iden-
tical with those which some of us believe we have traced
to the wings, the question is indeed settled, for, however
good our proofs, Mr. Trumbull’s are obviously better, and
it is idle to claim that the same sounds are produced in
radically different ways. But may there not be two
sounds seemingly much alike but really of different
character and origin?

It becomes evident on close reading of . Mr. Trumbull s
article that he is not quite sure of his identification
of these vocal notes; in other words he hesitates to
assert that they were positively the same as those
of the flushed bird. They “were seldom so loud or
energetic * * * nor were most of them like those
heard in the cover,” but were sufficiently similar “to be
regarded as very nearly the sound we were listening for,
while others “seemed absolute reproductions of those of
the flushed bird as we remember them; it is, of course,
impossible to recall them literally enough for nice com-
parison, no matter how often they have thrilled us. In
any ordinary case the very frankness of these admissions
would prevent the critic from using them against a writer
who shows such evident determination to be entirely fair
and accurate at possible expense to his argument, and it
would be manifestly unwarrantable to claim that the
mere opinions of an ornithologist and sportsman of Mr.
Trumbull’s standing and experience are not entitled to
much weight.

But the case is not an ordinary one, and the entire con-
fidence which otherwise might be reposed in Mr. Trurn-
buU’s convictions must be more or less affected by the
fact that other sportsmen have recorded directly opposite
convictions based on evidence which cannot be. lightly
disregarded. In this connection it also seems fair to in-
sist that if the importance of a direct comparison of
sounds be conceded, the advantage lies with the support-
ers— perhaps I should now say the defenders— of the wing
theory, for their experiments have been made in the
covers and immediately after listening to the sound of
the flushed bird. As far as my personal experiences of
this kind are concerned, I will say that I have no doubts
whatever that the sound made by the wounded bird as I
held it in my hand was identical with that which it had
o-iven on rising only a minute or two before. It may be
objected that I was deceived as to the origin of this
sound even although I held the bird within a few inches
of my’face. I admit that this is possible, but it is not to
my mind more probable than that Mr. Trumbull was also
deceived, and that bis captive really made its various
twitters, squeaks and murmurs by an undetected rubbing
together or “stridulation” of its stiffened primary quills—
a theory which I am not, of course, disposed to maintain.

What I do maintain is simply this, that some of Mr.
Trumbull’s conclusions relating to the flight sounds of
the woodcock are not satisfactorily proven by his own
observations, while they are directly negatived by the
experience of certain other sportsmen, whose testimony
should not be arbitrarily dismissed. If, however, it can
be shown that some of these conclusions have been a
trifle too broadly drawn and that Mr. Trumbull, m com-
mon with others who have written on the subject, has
fallen into error in supposing that all. the characteristic
flights of the woodcock are produced in the same way,
most of the difficulties of the case will at once disappear.
In other words, why may it not be that the “twitter’ as-
certained by Mr. Trumbull to be vocal has in some of its
variations so strong a resemblance to a tivitter-like
whistle made by the wings that the two have been gen-
erally, if not universally, confused by ornithologists and

^AtfirstTthought this suggestion may not seem to differ
materially from that advanced in the closing paragraph
of Mr Trumbull's article; but Mr. Trumbull apparently
indorses the idea expressed in his quotation from Frank
Forrester that the “twitter” and “whistle” are habitually
given simultaneously by birds of perfect plumage, and m
this and other connections he distinctly implies that the
“whistle” is at best a slight and in no way characteristic
sound, and that it is usually drowned by the vocal note,
the latter being the sound ordinarily heard from a rising

W< Now°wliat I have found to be the characteristic sound
of a full-feathered woodcock on rising and afterward
during vigorous, protracted flight is a clear, continuous,
pulsating whistle closely similar to that made by the wings
of certain ducks, but louder (perhaps because the wood-
cock is usually nearer than ducks are apt to be) and rather
more silvery and musical in tone. It is not subject, so
far as I have observed, to marked modifications of tone,
but the pulsations vary in distinctness with the speed at
which the bird is moving. In very rapid flight they are
often so run together as to be inappreciable. This whistle 1
believe to be made by the wings, or rather by the well. known
specialized outer primaries. I have never heard it from
a bird which lacked these quills, nor on the other hand
have I known a bird in which they proved to be fully
developed rise in the ordinary manner without whistling,
although a crafty old cock will not infrequently steal off
close to the ground, moving its wings m a peculiar quiv-

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Editor Forest and Stream:

In your editorial comments on Mr. Gurdon Trumbull s
'article on the woodcock, in your edition of the 11th inst.,
you say that no one had remarked on the curving of the
[upper mandible of the bill. I have had but little oppor-
tunity for studying the woodcock, never having lived in
a section where the bird is more than a casual visitor, but
T have had the good luck to see the bird curve the man-
dible while I held him, entirely uninjured, in my hand.

Back in the early 80s (I cannot say which), while
j stationed at the Boston Navy Yard, some men of my
department saw a woodcock light on the ground and run
into a pile of lumber; they secured him without starting
a feather, and brought him to me. I put him in a wire
house in which my children had had some rabbits and
kept him four days. I did not have the time to give to a
close study of his habits, but one thing I did. have mv
attention called to and that was the curving of the bill.

I had the bird in my hand before putting him m the m-
closure and while examining the head and eyes I took
hold of the tip of the bill and immediately on my letting
go he curved the bill exactly as shown in Mr. Trumbull’s
sketch. I was uneasy at first, thinking I had injured the
bill but in a short time the bill was in its proper shape.

I repeated the thing three or four times and always with
the same result. , , _ . , , ,

I did not see the bird feed, although I have no doubt
that he did so, for after four days’ confinement he was as
plump as any bird I ever saw, there were plenty of worms
in the earth in the inclosure and I kept a place very wet,
but did not examine for borings.

At first the bird was quite wild, and when I would go
into the inclosure would start to fly, but would bring up
against the screen and fall back. I thought at first he
would kill himself, but the hard knocks did not seem to
hurt him in the least. In all of his quick short flights 1
did not hear the peculiar noise the woodcock makes m
flight; I did hear the noise noted by Mr. Trumbull when
I approached the bird. ,

He got very tame, and on the fourth day when I took
him out of the cage to set him at liberty I had no trouble
in catching him, lie allowed me to pick him up without
trying to get away from me, and when I reached the open
fields and let him out of the basket he walked around,
with my wife and me just standing within 10ft, of him,
for at least a minute before he took flight.

The bird was very interesting, and I was sorry I did
not have the time to observe him more thoroughly.

As to the sound made by the woodcock when in flight,
I do not believe in the “wing theory” any more than I
believe that the sleeep of the snipe is made by the
wings . U. S. G. White.

Norfolk, Va., Dee. 16.

412

^tturjtl fjistory.

THE AMERICAN WOODCOCK.

Editor Forest and Stream:

I have read with peculiar interest, and sometimes with
great surprise, the articles that have appeared in your
paper concerning the “ways of the woodcock,’’ about
which such diversity of opinion exists. The details of the
many theories advanced, the various “facts and fancies”
need not be entered into here. Your readers must have
become already very familiar with the literature of the
subject — not to say weary of it. I have earnestly wished
for an opportunity, such as I have lately had, of more
thoroughly investigating the bird’s manner of feeding, its
notes, etc.

On Wednesday, Nov. 19, a live woodcock was brought
me by a friend. It had, I was told, been already “three
or four days” in confinement. It was apparently unhurt,
and a perfectly strong, healthy bird, and remained so
until the following Monday, when, with my full consent
and best wishes, it flew rapidly away. I kept it in a long
pine box with a wire netting in front, at a greenhouse
near by, where in a bright light I could easily watch its
movements. A piece of carpet, however, was thrown
over one end of the coop to afford the little fellow a shady
retreat. He came into my possession about 11 o’clock
in the morning, and from that hour until 11A.M. Mon-
day, the day of his release, I devoted myself almost ex-
clusively to studying his ways. He ate, by actual
measurement, about a half -pint of earth worms during
each day (twenty-four hours); the worms being measured
without any dirt, of course; each one picked up by itself,
shaken clean, and dropped into the measure. A few
“white grubs” of different sizes were also supplied: he
ate the little ones but refused the larger. None of the
angle worms, however, seemed too large for him.

The worms were kept at the brightly lighted end of the
coop in a box of earth which afforded a feeding surface
of a little over 12xGin., the earth having been flattened
down with the hand and sprinkled with water. He fed
at very irregular hours, and ate fully as much by day-
light as in the dark, and food was accessible to him at all
times. I say “him,” believing that this bird was a male,
but I could not bring myself to determine the matter by
dissection — he was such a winning little creature.

The intervals between his meals were perhaps from
half an hour to three horns, this very rough estimate
being founded upon the day and evening feeding. I did
not watch him so constantly during the evening as I did
in the daytime. I visited him, however, every evening
once or twice, sometimes making him a long call by the
light of a lantern. All that I know about the remainder
of the night and the early morning was gained by re- j
measuring the worms and finding how many were gone. |

After eating all he wanted — from four to seven worms,
let us say — he would sometimes retire to his shady corner,
at other times stand or squat exactly where the last worm
was swallowed, remaining motionless until moved again
by hunger. He took no exercise unless forced to, and
was often found with his big head turned backward and
his long bill beneath his wing. A dish of water was
always by his side, but I never saw him touch it.

I will add to my estimate of the number of worms eaten
at a single meal, that there were certain occasions in
which he quite regularly ate less than three; for exam-
ple, when friends of mine called, as many did, to see the
bird. I could start him to “boring” by driving him about
the coop very gently. He would then get upon the dirt,
and with very little of the preliminary teetering, which I
describe further along, make a few rather short, hasty,
nervous thrusts, and finally extract and swallow a worm
—at the most two worms— not hungrily at all, but rather
as if he were trying to make sure of a little more of his
property before we stole it. He never (to my knowledge)
picked up a worm that lay upon the surface, or any
worm that was not entirely covered with soil. I have
several times seen him walk directly over those that were
exposed without paying them the least attention. Once
a worm that he had extracted slipped from his bill and
lay squirming about in plain sight, but he made no effort
to recover it.

His manner of feeding was very nearly like that of Mr.
Eldon’s woodcock, mentioned in your issue of Nov. 27,
1890, but as corroboration is always a good thing — and
my bird did not act precisely like his— I will include my
own observations, I am writing in the past tense, but
my narrative is a summary of copious notes made daily
while the bird was with me; in no instance am I trusting
to memory.

When hungry my bird would walk out of his dark cor-
ner and step up, or hop up on the wet earth, stand there
usually for a short time motionless, then slowly and
methodically teeter or swing himself up and down as if
trying to throw his fullest weight upon his feet (but I
will speak of this further on), then, generally without
any preliminary pecking, thrust his bill into the mud,
sometimes two-thirds its length at the first trial, but oft-
ener pushing it in by degrees a third of its length perhaps
at a time, pulling it a little outward again to give the next
thrust greater force, and when probing deeply there was
a rooting shake or energetic tremor to the head. If he
found a worm — and he almost always did, they were
planted so thickly — the bill was entirely withdrawn with
the worm held more or less crosswise between the partly
opened mandibles; it was'quickly worked around, how-
ever, until one end— it made no difference which — was
started straight and then swallowed. I never saw him
pull out a worm by its end, its position always had to be
changed, a little _ at least, before it was worked upward
and the swallowing really began. While watching, my
eyes were usually within three or four feet of him, and
often — after he had become more tame — within eighteen
inches of his bill. Sometimes after a momentary and
thoughtful pause, he would suddenly pull his beak from
a hole that he had made, and hurriedly start another very
near it, as though he had located the fellow while in the
first hole, but could not quite reach him.

Though no one will claim that all the birds of any
species conduct themselves precisely alike upon all occa-
sions, yet it now seems entirely reasonable to infer that
no woodcock ever sucks a worm into its throat before
withdrawing its bill from the ground; that the term
“bog-sucker” is a misnomer, and that Audubon would
not have “concluded” as he did, had he not watched his
woodcock in a “partially darkened” room.

FOREST AND STREAM.

After a worm had been swallowed there was com- .
monly a decided pause during which the bird remained I
motionless— from forty- five seconds to three minutes let
us say — then the preliminary teetering began again. I
never saw him “cock his head on one side” in the act of
listening, and though he once made a quick little back-
ward jump while feeding, I saw no “dancing” or “stamp-
ing.” While the teetering was going on both feet re-
mained upon the ground, and his wings were at all times
closely folded while standing or squatting, and though
while moving quickly or excited his tail was lifted, I
never saw it spread while the bird was on his feet.

Whether this preliminary teetering or swinging lift
and fall of the body was to cause the worm below to
move and thus reveal its whereabouts, or whether the
bird was simply pulling himself together for the muscular
effort that was to follow — as a boy swings his arms and
body before jumping — remains an open question; but
the movement was more vigorous when it followed one
of his long periods of statue-like repose. A very mild
form of the teetering often preceded an evacuation.

When, as sometimes happened, a worm which he had
extracted squirmed into a position that seemed to baffle
the powers of the bill alone he would lift his foot — as
others have described— in an impatient manner, brush it
quickly along the side of the bill and knock the worm
into place. He also used his toes to wipe the mud from
his beak; but I regret to say that my little woodcock was
sometimes very careless about his personal appearance,
and that he once sat for nearly an hour with a large
lump of mud resting on the upper mandible and the
pretty feathers of his forehead.

He had no particular position for his feet while feed-
ing; at one time they would be side by side, at another
time one or the other would be advanced. His thrusts
were made at all sorts of angles; now directly downward
or perpendicularly, another time to the front at an angle
of forty-five degrees perhaps, or inwardly beneath his
breast, almost as far back as his toes. Once while prob-
ing in the last-named fashion he lost his balance and was
very near turning a forward somersault.

I had heard from Dr. S. , who secured this woodcock for
me, that he and his friend Mr. B. had seen the bird turn
up the end of its upper mandible in a very peculiar and
inexplicable manner. I was urged to watch carefully for
a repetition of the occurrence. At the time I paid but
little attention to the statement, I was watching for so
many other events, but while carrying my bird out into
the country that last day of its confinement, my friend’s re-
mark was most vividly recalled. 1 was holding the bird
in my hand with a handkerchief around him. covering all
but the bill, when suddenly, as he was making one of his
frequent struggles to get away, I saw that the upper
mandible was thrown upward as I have represented it in
the lower outline of the accompanying woodcut. For an

instant I thought that the bird must have met with an
accident in some way, but as I touched the lifted mandi-
ble it was lowered to the usual position. Twice more dur-
ing my walk he threw up the mandible in the same
fashion, and each time I held him directly in front of my
eyes and studied most carefully the exact curvature.
There was no “dilation,” nor any change of form other
than that which I describe. He once held the bill in
this strange position for nearly, if not quite, half a
minute.

After liberating my captive and reaching home, I im-
mediately procured a woodcock that had been recently
killed, and found that I could easily curve jits mandible
into the precise position into which my live bird could curve
his own at will. Though my outline was made from the
dead woodcock, it was drawn while the aspect of the live
bird was thoroughly fresh in my mind (within two hours
after I had witnessed the occurrence). For the purpose
of comparison I have also drawn the bill as it is commonly
seen.

During the first day with me my bird made no sound j
of any kind, and was somewhat frightened or depressed,
though not as much so as most birds would have been under !
the circumstances — the woodcock is one of the most gentle ]
and trustful of birds, as every one knows, and so many
have testified — but on the following morning he seemed
quite reconciled to his surroundings, and but little dis-
turbed by my reappearance. He was so much at home,
indeed, that when I reached my hand for the worm box
he did not move away as he had done before, but stood:
his ground manfully, uttering two very positive notes of
remonstrance. At this point of the proceedings the owner
of the greenhouse (Robert Marchant), who was standing;
about ten feet from the cage, jumped for the outside door
with the exclamation, “Wild ducks going over — don’t you
hear ’em!” I quickly motioned him to be silent and to
come nearer; and when it uttered a few more notes, more
squeaky than the first, Robert, who little knew what im-
portant evidence he was bearing, said: “That’s the noise
they make when they jump up in the woods. It sounded
before like ducks a long way off.”

From that morning (Nov. 20) until I gave the bird its
freedom (Nov. 24) I could call forth these or similar notes,
day or evening, whenever I chose to do so, and more and
more easily as the bird grew tamer, by simply putting
my hand into the coop and moving it very slowly and
hesitatingly toward him. The notes, though having de-
cidedly similar qualities, varied from an almost dovelike
murmur to a positive and almost ratlike squeak. They
were sometimes uttered singly and sometimes two or
three in succession.

The bird created quite a sensation locally, and a num-
ber of sportsmen came to see and hear him, and all these
gentlemen agree with me that the notes heard, or rather]
some of those notes, were undeniably the sounds which
have caused so much discussion — the sounds, that is to I
say, which are made by the flushed cock, and to which 1

| J i > X j j, | [Dec. 11, 1890.

the words squeal, whistle, piping alarm note, twitter,
jingle, etc., have been applied.

While my bird was “talking,” there was not the least
movement of the wings nor of the bill, the mandibles re-
maining tightly. closed. The only movement anywhere,
with the exception of a very slight drawing backward as
my hand advanced, was in the throat or breast; it is im-
possible to say which, as the bird rarely showed any of
his neck while in the coop. He sat, stood, walked and
hopped with head drawn in to the shoulders, his breast
touching or nearly touching the base of the bill.

The notes were seldom so loud or energetic as those
of the flushed bird, nor were most of them like those
heard in the cover. Yet at almost every trial there was
at least one squeaky enough to be regarded as very nearly
the sound we were listening for, certainly enough like
it to convince any doubter who happened to be present,
that a flushed cock “talks with its mouth.”

Some of the notes seemed absolute reproductions of
those of the flushed bird as we remember them; it is, of
course, impossible to recall them literally enough for nice
comparison, no matter how often they have thrilled us.
Once as I held the bird pinioned in my hand he made a
violent and almost successful struggle to free himself, ut-
tering at the same time two notes so thrillingly like
those of his wilder brother that for an instant I was
really unconscious of my surroundings, and the words
“mark cock” were very near my lips. I have listened
many times while my bird was flapping his wings, as I held
him (sometimes by the bill and sometimes by the legs) sus-
pended in the air, for those sounds which certain writers
have mentioned as being heard at such times. Once—
and once only— in over twenty trials 1 heard two very
faint peeps. Upon all other occasions there was no
sound but that of rapid fanning, and when the motion
was at its highest the cutting whit, whit, whit of the
wings that would be made by many kinds of birds under
similar conditions. The two peeps (I do not know how
better to describe them) were the only doubtful sounds
that the bird was heard to make. They were so very
faint that my friend Mr. N., who was with me at the
time, heard only one of them, and our heads were as
near the bird’s wings as we could get them without
being hit. Was that little sound, we asked each other,
vocal, or was it an intensified, whistling whit of the wing?

Two of the sportsmen who witnessed my bird's per-
formances had been lifelong believers in the wing-twitter
theory, and they were very watchful critics; but after the
bird had been induced to utter a number of its notes, and
had been held up for the wing-beating or flapping per-
formance, and each wing had been carefully examined to
see if the attenuated primaries and pollex feathers were
in place, these gentlemen acknowledged that the sounds
about which so much has been said are vocal beyond
question, and that the whit, whit, whit of the pinions— no
matter how loudly and shrilly made in rapid flight — is
not liable ever to be confused with the vocal notes by
any one with an experience like ours.

When a woodcock “twitters” he squeals, pipes, squeaks,
rather than whistles. The sound made in swift flight by
the wings of this and other species— many of our ducks
for example— is perhaps more appropriately termed a
whistle. Frank Forester makes the same distinction. He
speaks of the woodcock’s flight after the leaves are off the
underbrush— of its darting away “on a vigorous and
whistling pinion, with sharp-piping alarm note, swift as
a rifle bullet.” Gurdon Trumbull.

Hartford, Conn.

THE AMERICAN WOODCOCK.

T HE article on the woodcock, contributed to this week’s
Forest and Stream by Mr. Gurdon Trumbull, is
perhaps the most important essay on this bird that has
ever been published. To the sportsman, and more es-
pecially to the sportsman who is a naturalist as well, it
is as entertaining as a novel, and holds the attention
from its beginning to its end. While many of the obser-
vations recorded in this article are merely confirmatory
of those which have been made by others it contains
several points which are entirely new and would seem
to finally dispose of the vexed question as to how the
woodcock whistles. Every one who has followed the
literature of this subject will remember what diverse views
have been held on this point, and how earnestly it has
been debated pro and con, such an eminent naturalist as
Mr. Brewster, with a vast number of sportsmen, taking
the ground that the sound is made by the wings, while
an almost equal number of writers, some of them well-
known, have held that the woodcock literally, as Mr.
Trumbull puts it, “talks with his mouth.”

We do not recollect that any man has ever before stated
that he has seen the woodcock curve up the tip of his
upper mandible as recorded by Mr. Trumbull, although
the bird’s ability to do this was inferred from an examina-
tion of its boring holes, in a note published in Forest and
Stream of Nov. 6 last.

Mr. Trumbull’s observations were conducted with the
extremest care, and the results will delight all who are
interested in shooting, or in natural history. The value
of such a study of our game birds can hardly be over-
estimated.

It must be remembered that Mr. Trumbull is a trained
ornithologist, a careful and accurate observer, and thus
that his observations are entitled to much more weight
than those of a man who— however honest he might be

could not weigh evidence and draw just conclusions

with the certainty of a scientific man. Mr. Trumbull’s
important and fascinating book entitled “Names and
Portraits of Birds Interesting to Gunners” has a placelin
every ornithological library in the country, and we doubt
not in most sportsmen’s libraries. It is a piece of good
work, well done, and is to our mind the most entertain-
ing book on game birds ever written.

I dark. It cracked and lit up the surrounding timber and
' brush with a lurid light. It had a comfortable look,

BOSTON EVENING- TRANSCRIPT. MONDAY, MAY 16. 1892.

THE LISTENER.

If you come with the Listener to a certain
lately-cleared but novr bush-grown field not
very far from Boston, on the edj?e of a large
wood— a wild spot, stony and, yet not innocent
of bogs and muddy places here and there— you
may hear and see one of the strangest and most
delightful of performances. It is the night-flight
and love-song of the woodcock— that queer,
uncouth water-bird who has taken to the land;
whose ugly bull head, short legs, long bill and
ungraceful ordinary movements are laughable;
who is, nevertheless, worshipped by sportsmen;
who is divine on the table, and who is capable
of the most remarkable union of grace in move-
ment and musical utterance, in his one great
rapturous performance that so few people have
seen or ever will see.

_j_ _i_ _j_

You may see and hear it, that is, if yon come
to the place when the bird is disposed to per-
form, and arrive at the right time, just long
enough after sunset so that the dusk shall
have barely begun to gather, without making
it dark as yet. Then you will very likely hear
a sharp, grating bird-sound, which at first you
take to be the shriek of a Bight hawk. But it
comes from the level of the ground, and is less
musical, if anything, than the night-hawk’s
song. You hear it repeated at intervals,
“jS 'peek, spee-ee/c , f>pee-uk t ” from the ground

not far away. This is the “bleating”
of the woodcock. You listen curiously
while the bird reels off this harsh and
disagreeable soliloquy; perhaps you have
heard that it is preliminary to nis much more
interesting performance, and you are impatient
to see and hear that. The speek is intermitted
for a moment; and then you hear, seemingly
from far away — and yet is it not in your very
ears? — a steady, musical, whistling crescendo
sound. There he goes ! The woodcock's ascent
has begun. Now you see him, rising in a slant-
ing straight line, coming straight over your
head, his body held stiff and taut, his wings
beating swiftly, his course steadily up and
away ; you fancy he is going to fly away out of
sight; but while he is still in plain view, he
veers to the right and begins a long curve or
circle, still upward; and all the while continues
that singular, musical wh^tling crescendo.
h — i — t

Now he is fairly launched upon his great
ascending spiral. He rises more and more
swiftly ; the note niade by his whistle takes a
higher and higher pitch, and the throbs are
closer together. His spiral has at first covered
so wide a space that you have been compelled
to twist your body upon the ground where you
are crouching to keep your eyes upon him ; but
now, as he mounts higher, the circles which he
is describing become smaller and smaller. At
the same time his whistle— one can only call it a
whistle for want of a better word, for the sound
is indescribable— takes a >ort of rhythm; it is
like the rhythm which a person falls into who
is playing scales upon the upper octaves of a
piano so rapidly that he can no longer
make them sound regular and even. Higher,
higher mounts the bird until he is a mere speck
and yet you can still see the swift beat-
ing of those wings. Now the circles of
his spiral are very small ; he is mad with
ecstacy. For an instant he seems to flutter at
the very apex as if he must die with joy if he
went any further, and yet were unwilling to
descend ; and just at that fluttering instant you
begin to hear a new and still more ecstatic
sound— a soft murmuring note between a whis-

per and a cry— zup-zup— then the old whistle
begins spasmodically again— the bird flutters
and falls a little— zup-zup-ziip— that soft, deli-
cious, intensely musical note is repeated— the
bird seems to tip downward sidewise slowly,
reluctantly— the whistle and the other wonder-
ful note begin to sound simultaneously; and as
the bird sinks and falls faster and faster from
liis height, he gives himself up in a melancholy
rapture to this steadily repeated sound ; and now
he drops, limp and quite silest, and so swiftly
that you fancy he must be hurt, straight to the
very spot in the field from which he Went up ;
and in another moment you hear once more the
harsh call : Speek— spee-eek—spee- uk!

4- 4- -t-

It is indeed a fall from the sublime to the
ridiculous. Here he is grating, squeaking away
again on the earth— this bird which hut the
moment before had been rapt in an aerial
ecstacy. He keeps it up for two or three minutes
at least— a longer time, probably, than he has
spent in his musical flight ; for, though you were
too much excited while the performance lasted
j to take any note of time, it is probably not i
I longer than a minute and a half. But he does [
! not "bleat” very long. Ohoe more you hear
that vague whistle, far away and yet so near,
and yon know he is mounting again; once
more he shoots straight over your head; and
again he is mounting his ecstatic spiral— accel-
erating, climbing the musical scale as well as.
the vault of heaven; his whistle getting all the
weird effect of a sound coming from high in the
air, and yet becoming more clearly to be
heard as tlla creature goes up. Once more the
attainment of the apex, onoe more that deli-
cious reluctance to return to earth, once niore
that most musical-melancholy whispering,
once more the drop straight to earth and the re- ;
commencement of the harsh quacking refrain
there. By and by he goes up again ; and
you listen and watch, enchanted, until,
with the increasing darkness, and the height of
his ascent, you lose sight of the bird, and
his performance is to the ear only— a voice and
nothing more— and yet the more intensely
weird because yon cannot see whence it comes,
Very likely the performance is repeated seven
or eight times, You Wonder that the little
bird can find the strength to make such a series
Of tremendous flights; and while you are won-
dering, and incidentally listening to a whip-
poor-will who is singing, a , ,ud unplaint from
the edge of the woods close by, you become
aware that the speek, svee-eek is no longer
sounding; and you listen in vain for any far-
ther music from vour woodcock.

-f 1 — r

Bnt unless you are a dull sort of person you
carry the singular music home with you and
hear it again and again, and wonder at it, as
you lie in bed. Never, you think, was utter
rapture so completely expressed at once in ae-
| tion and in sound. You wonder, as everybody
has done who has heard the sound and seen the
sight, how the whistling is produced— whether
it is the swift rushing of the bird’s wings or a
song from his throat. You fancy that it must
be done with his wings, bocause it seems im-
possible that the creature could fly with such
force and sing all the time. But the descend
I ingzwp ziip— that is surely done with the throat,

| for you have heard the whistling, like an ac-
companiment or obbligato in it, at least apart of
the time. Its musioal quality is as unquestion,
able as it is indescribable; and, somehow *;<

. seems to you as much a miracle as it won . 4 j
seem to hear a swan sing. Rather more, in* j
deed, for the swan on the water is always bean- !
tifnl at least, and the woodcock is never beau- j
tiful. ______ f

NOTES AND SONG-FLIGHT OF THE WOODCOCK
(PHILO HE LA MINOR).

BY WILLIAM BREWSTER.

In 1891, Mr. Walter Faxon and I spent two evenings and
one morning studying the notes and song-flight of the Wood-
cock, and the present article consists merely of a transcript of
the memoranda made on these occasions, — viz., the evenings
of April 7 and 13, and the morning of April S, the locality
being Lexington, Massachusetts.

Lexington , Mass., April 7, 1891.— Mr. Faxon found a
Woodcock singing on the evenings of the 5th and 6th and the
morning of the 7th on the top of a high hill near the village.
I went there with him this evening, arriving at 6.25, when the
bird was already peeping. There were seven song-flights and
eight peeping spells in the next thirty-five minutes, the last peep-
ing being unusually protracted and the bird, at its close, rising and
flying off low down without singing, at precisely seven o’clock.
At this time it was still rather light or, at least, not nearly so
dark as the night afterwards became. The weather was cold
with a strong northwest wind, the sky overcast. The paaps
were uttered consecutively 31, 21, 37, 29, and 28 times, no
counts being made during the first and last calling periods.
The song proper (timed once only) lasted exactly ten seconds.

backward, followed by a forward and downward, jerk of the head
and a slight opening of the wings. The bird did not turn about

/£ a f i ti r /

FROM

t dh(S „ / //

HABITS OF THE WOODCOCK.

JtfcDITOR U 'OREST AND STREAM :

Seeing in your issue of Jan. 23 a question as to the habits of wood-
cock, lam prompted by a desire to repay, in a small part, the many pleas-
ant hours I have spent in the perusal of the entertaining and ins tructive
articles always to be found in Foebst and SraEAM.to give you a little of
the result of my own observations on the habits of that king of all game
birds. Residing in thenorthern part of Pennsylvania, and in a locality
in which, until recently, the woodcock and ruffed grouse were the only
game birds we had, has led me to watch closely their habits. I have
stood for hours in the spring of the year, from early twiiight until late in
the night, listening to the hollow, ringing “Zisb, zisb,” of the woodcock
which he repeats at intervals of about twenty seconds for four or live
minutes ; tip for a moment all will be still. Next Is heard the sharp
whirr of his Wings as he takes flight, swinging around and upward in a
spiral, rising, as they tell us the English lark does, high in the air until
the sound of his wings Is almost lost. When the bird begins to descend
the sound of the wings is wholly changed, seeming almost like the
twittering song of the canary bird, until the bird reaches to within
about one hundred feet of the place from which he started, when he
sets his wings like a parachute, and drops silently and swiftly to the
ground, to repeat the performance again and again. I have lain on the
ground in moonlight nights, and watched him come out of his cover
strutting about much as an old gobbler does at times, and utterimr his
peculiar cry, which would be answered by other birds in hearing
Whether both sexes participate in the dance I am unable to sav never
having shot one of them during the performance. I have shot wood-
cock at all times of the day, from earliest daylight until it was too dark
to see the barrels of a gun, and have found fresh worms between their
bills, which they had not had time to swallow; and I have seen them

boring and feeding at all hours of the night. I think the bird si!!

and feeds alternately, at short intervals, during the entire twentv-fonr
hours, except, perhaps, during the moulting season, when thev feed
during the night. Onr best month for woodcock shooting is July for
then the old birds and full-grown young ones are in the rover LZ
the streams and bottom lands. In August you can hardly
there, although you will And fresh boring every morning Thor
then away on the steep side hills and mountains, moulting „
less than usual, coming down to the feeding-grounds only in the oil?
and returning before daylight to their mountain fastnesses ? ’
tember they begin to work in the cornfields wherever there! To P '
soft soil, and remain in the cover of the corn during the dav Vh
is grand sport to get into the corn, with a stool tall enough to raise !
above the corn tops and a merry little cocker flying about to
birds, and bang away at them. What if your gun does kick you off he
stool occasionally; there is soft ground to fall on-“ UD and 1
again.” As soon as hard frost comes the birds start for a more Mm!
climate; and I have noticed that, with us, they follow the
toward the coast, stopping occasionally to feed, which they do in
soft ground close to the water's edge, rarely going lore than a
feet from the stream; and upon looking along in these nine!!
be surprised at the great amount of boring, compared wfth the “
Of birds, which he will find. An incident cameTnderMy ^
which illustrates the rapidity of their flight : I was standing on
elevation overlooking a cornfield ou the bottom land, and was watchfn ‘
the manoeuvres of a chicken hawk which was sailing abont ! !!
circles. Suddenly he poised himself for an imtant, then darted
perpendicularly into the corn. About the time he reached the r ^
the corn, I heard the whirr of a woodcock, and saw him emerve fr!!
the corn with the hawk in close pursuit. Away he darted ! to '
time seeming to look back to see if his adversary was coMnir r IT
saw he was in no danger, for he could handicap that hawk one rod F
ten, and then beat him. After flying fifty or sixty rods he darted into
a dense cover, and the hawk gave up the chase in disgust several r!!
behind. I hope to learn still further of the habits and custanMf
Philohela minor, ■ 01

______ Ortyx V.

FROM

Vr/A.,

Editor Forest and Stream : New York, Jan. 29, 1879.

I read with great interest the letter of « Portsa » in „ *

and haying once had a very similar experience with i f Dumber <
add my testimony to his as regards both their « shrink' T ’ 1 Can
ance at night. Two years ago I spent a week in and a K> e ar-

Lake. N. Y„ and one evening, as we were It!?/ T Green ^°od
the day’s shoot, my attention was called to a bird which mu "f™ ^
are, and alighted at a short distance, immediate^ ™ Past the
peculiar cry, which, having heard it in ^

n,zed as that of a woodcock, it was a bright mofnligSht an? 08 "

companion and myself, going out into an adiacent ’ my

small undergrowth, were enabled to shoot three “ on IT™ Wltl1
tors. Having never heard of such a thing being i]o» h« “ ma Tisi ‘
letter from “ Portsa ” met my eye I immediately re™ be . fore > wbe h the
ence similar to my own, and write this, hoping
take interest enough in the subject to give a littfe inform^? y may
ing the nocturnal habits of SooLpax minor. inform ^°n concern-

W. D.

FROM

Germantown, Pa., Jan. 26, 1879.

Editor Forest and Stream :

In the article Headed “ Are Woodcock Nocturnal?” there is certainly
a mistake as regards time. About mating season, which takes place in
early spring, the woodcock is In the habit ol soaring, and often ascends
to the height of two or three hundred feet, and comes down nearly in
the same spot. His habit is to feed at dusk and early in the morning,
before day, and also through the day, although not as Industriously in the
day time. If these woodcock did soar in the middle of summer, they
must have made a mistake as to the time of the year ; if he did not soar
in the summer, your correspondent has made a mistake in the time.
The mistake lies between the woodcock and the man, but as far as my
experience goes, the woodcock has the inside track.

Constant Header.

OLOGIST

[Vol. 7-No. 18

Woodcock aite — Blacih Duomi i — Passing
through an old pasture Thursday, May 4,
I started up a Woodcock from a small
thicket, which was immediately followed
by four more, an old bird and four young,
the latter so large as scarcely to be distin-
guished from the mother bird, except that
she flapped her wings as if flying with
difficulty and made a sort of whining cry.
I don’t think I ever saw young of that
species so early before and very mature —
eggs must have been laid exceedingly
early, perhaps before April, though I do
not know how long time is required for
their incubation. I

also found a W oodcock ’s nest containing
one egg, just as we were going to leave.
I left it in order to get the full set, and
went down again on Wednesday, the 24th,
and got the set of three. Incubation was
just begun. This is very late for Wood-
cock’s eggs and must have been a second
set. ft- ^

it

a

d

co

00

r *

9

•n

3

t>

6

d

O.&O. Vlll. Dec. 1883. p.ftf

Early Nesting of the Woodcock.

On March 30, 1889, a friend of mine found a
nest of the American Woodcock ( Philohela
minor), containing four eggs. The nest, which
was a mere depression on the top of a small
moss-covered mound, measuring about five
inches in breadth by one in depth, was situated
in a thicket of briers and bushes on the south
side of a piece of woods near a small stream of
water. He discovered the nest while engaged
in cutting bushes, and had cut them all from
off the mound on which the nest was made,
his scythe passing directly over the sitting
bird’s head two or three times in the operation.
It was not until the bushes fell across her
back that she moved at all, and then it was
only to go a foot or two from the nest. The
eggs were of the usual color, but were a little
larger than the average. They measured as
follows in hundredths of an inch: 1.57x1.22,
1.55x1.23, 1.57x1.19, and 1.53x1.18.

G. L. H.

Bethel, Conn.

° ‘fcO. XIV, June. 1889 p.88

Early Woodcock. — Mr. R. G. Hazard,
2d, found a Woodcock’s nest, April 16th,
that the young had just left, and he col-
lected the shells. , .. , . /1rW , t ,

A Series of Eggs of the American
W oodcock.

The eggs of the American Woodcock (Philo-
hela minor) are almost always four in number,
and are laid on a few leaves on the ground.
They are rounded ovate or short ovate in form,
although occasionally a set is found that
are ovate. The ground color is subject to
considerable variation as well as the mark-
ings.

Set I. June 3, 1875. Ledyard, New London
, County, Connecticut. Collected by “ J. M. W.”
(C. L. Rawson). Eggs on old leaves, among
white birches, on ground sloping toward
swamp. Female feigned lameness, almost
i touched. Pointed by dog. Male near. Four
eggs, incubation begun. Ecru drab, spotted
with fawn color and lavender-gray: 1.49x1.21;
1.44x1.19; 1.50x1.21; 1.49x1.19.

Set II. March 29, 1889. Wake County,
North Carolina. Collected by H. H. & C. S.
Brimley. Nest, a mere depression in dead
leaves in mixed woods, on hillside sloping to
creek, just above flood mark. Bird on nest.
Four eggs, incubation far advanced. Buffy,
spotted with russet and fawn color: 1.60x1.09;

| 1.58x1.09; 1.51x1.07; 1.50x1.09.

Set III. April 15, 1883. Preston, New Lon-
don County, Connecticut. Collected by “ J.
M. W.” (C. L. Iiawson). Eggs on ground,
among white birches. Nest pointed by dog,
although he may have been pointing the male
bird, which was within a few feet of the nest
when first seen. Four eggs, incubation begun.
Ecru drab, spotted with cinnamon and lilac-
gray: 1.53x1.14; 1.47x1.19; 1.50x1.16; 1.49 x
1.17.

Set IV. April, 1885. Kennett Square, Penn-
sylvania. Collected for II. II. Gawthrop.
Eggs on ground. Three eggs; fawn color,
spotted with russet and lilac-gray: 1.57x1.17;
1.52x1.14; 1.51x1,14.

Set V. April 21, 1875. Ledyard, New Lon-
don County, Connecticut. Collected by “J.
M. W.” (C. L. Rawson). Eggs on leaves on
ground, on slope wooded with white birches,
sloping toward water. Pointed by dog. Four
eggs. Fawn color, spotted with russet and
drab: 1.53x1.23; 1.49x1.22 ; 1.60 x 1.21 ; 1.53
x 1.22.

Set VI. April 26, 1886. Rockland, Maine.
Four eggs, fresh. Fawn color, spotted with
russet and lilac-gray: 1.50x1.24; 1.48x1.19;
1.52x1.22; 1.46x1.17.

J. P. N.

O <fcO. XIV. Aug. 1889 p.119

ward him for his kindness.

The nest was a mere depression on a hill-
side leading from the pine woods to creek
lowlands, and close by a lane leading up the
hill from the creek meadows. The eggs
| were about three-quarters incubated, but we
saved them with some trouble.

The Woodcock is a rare resident about here,

: although sometimes abundant in their migra-
tions. I suppose about a dozen pairs may nest
in this neighborhood. C. S. Brimley.

Raleigh, N C.

O.& O. XIV. Nov. 1889 p.16^

5 ?

OLOGIST

[Vol. 7-No. 18

Woodcock j utp —' BiiA

- Passing

t

4

a

cl

C3

00

a

►->

ri

>

6

•a

o'

through an old pasture Thursday, May 4,

I started up a Woodcock from a small
thicket, which was immediately followed
by four more, an old bird and four young,
the latter so large as scarcely to be distin-
guished from the mother bird, except that
she flapped her wings as if flying with
difficulty and made a sort of whining cry.

I don’t think I ever saw young of that
species so early before and very mature-
eggs must have been laid exceedingly
early, perhaps before April, though I do
not know how long time is required for
their incubation. I

also found a W oodcock’ s nest containing
one egg, just as we were going to leave.

I left it in order to get the full set, and
went down again on Wednesday, the 24th,
and got the set of three. Incubation was
just begun. This is very late for Wood-
cock’s eggs and must have been a second
set. ft. ***-”*•

O.&O. Vlll. Dec. 1883. Pfi-

Early Nesting of the Woodcock.

On March 30, 1889, a friend of mine found a
nest of the American Woodcock (Philohela
minor), containing four eggs. The nest, which
was a mere depression on the top of a small
moss-covered mound, measuring about five
inches in breadth by one in depth, was situated
in a thicket of briers and bushes on the south
side of a piece of woods near a small stream of
water. He discovered the nest while engaged
in cutting bushes, and had cut them all from
off the mound on which the nest was made,
his scythe passing directly over the sitting
bird’s head two or three times in the operation.
It was not until the bushes fell across her
back that she moved at all, and then it was
only to go a foot or two from the nest. The
eggs were of the usual color, but were a little
larger than the average. They measured as
follows in hundredths of an inch: 1.57x1.22,
1.55x1.23, 1.57x1.19, and 1.53x1.18.

G. L. n.

Bethel, Conn.

o &0. XIV. June. 18b9 p.88

Early Woodcock. — Mr. R. G. Hazard,
2d, found a Woodcock’s nest, April 16th,
that the young had just left, and he col-
lected the shells. , ,, , . t , ■ . ,

A Series of Eggs of the American
W oodcock.

The eggs of the American Woodcock ( Philo-
hela minor) are almost always four in number,
and are laid on a few leaves on the ground.
They are rounded ovate or short ovate in form,
although occasionally a set is found that
are ovate. The ground color is subject to
considerable variation as well as the mark-
ings.

Set I. June 3, 1875. Ledyard, New London
County, Connecticut. Collected by “ J. M. W.”
(C. L. Rawson). Eggs on old leaves, among
white birches, on ground sloping toward
swamp. Female feigned lameness, almost
touched. Pointed by dog. Male near. Four
eggs, incubation begun. Ecru drab, spotted
with fawn color and lavender-gray: 1.49 x 1.21 ;
1.44x1.19; 1.50x1.21; 1.49x1.19.

Set II. March 29, 1889. Wake County,
North Carolina. Collected by H. H. & C. S.
Brimley. Nest, a mere depression in dead
leaves in mixed woods, on hillside sloping to
creek, just above flood mark. Bird on nest.
Four eggs, incubation far advanced. Buffy,
spotted with russet and fawn color: l.liOx 1.09;
1.58x1.09; 1.51x1.07; 1.50x1.09.

Set III. April 15, 1883. Preston, New Lon-

oumi jaipjo oi[x 'uopoS.io,; oq o{ joaqu o.n:
p.reoq oouo pun ‘p;:m.n:o[ A[tsa:o o.n: Aoip ‘ueS
-UP!IM 40 p.itq jgipo Aim jo S 9 { 0 U 9 q{ oqq { 0 >f
•Apppreauu {souip: uigos pun ‘siioi-io^sAui g.re
qsjnui aip uio.ij Suiuioo spunos aqx M9q;o
9 qi ump {oupsip ssa{ Suigq u op 9 pp?q£s {rug
aqi ‘pnd uo si piaooe gqx ’sump U9A9S jo xts
A’qti.iouoS ‘samp {q.oio o{ .uioj uioij piqrodo.i

o. n: S9{qiqpCs esgqx •aureu siq{ poAigog.i srq

p. nq 9q{ {uqg uoppnd uirqd sp.ioAV 9ip 9{qm9S
-9.1 Apmgti os spunos oqx ‘qs.reui aq{ in Suipuiqs
si p.nq gq^ uoq.VL A[<[i!i.n:Au[ ‘sa^ou 9ip sn

Nesting of the American Woodcock
in North Carolina.

On March 29, 1889, a young friend of mine
was returning home from fishing and had just
| started up a sloping hillside covered with bush-
es, that led down to the creek bottom, when his
bird dog came to a dead stand. On investigat-
ing the matter he flushed a female woodcock
(Philohela minor) from her complement of four
eggs. Overjoyed at his find he brought the
eggs home to us, two in each hand, and we
were equally glad to receive them, and to re-
ward him for his kindness.

The nest was a mere depression on a hill-
side leading from the pine woods to creek
lowlands, and close by a lane leading up the
hill from the creek meadows. The eggs
j were about three-quarters incubated, but we
I saved them with some trouble.

The Woodcock is a rare resident about here,
although sometimes abundant in their migra-
tions. I suppose about a dozen pairs may nest
in this neighborhood. C. 8. Brimley.

Raleigli, N C.

O.&O. XIV. Nov. 1889 p.10^

5 ?

May, 1893.]

AND OOLOGIST.

79

American Woodcock.

The American Woodcock is very seldom
found in the vicinity of Detroit now, but
there are still a few swamps where they can
be found. In one of these swamps about
three miles from the city I first made my
acquaintance with their nest. The swamp
was a dense mass of brush and tall weeds
on the northern side of Voight’s woods. On
May 24, 1891, I started out here, hoping to
collect a few sets of eggs, with my chum, Harry
Allis. We had fair luck and were returning
homeward when I started a female Wood-
cock from nearly under my feet, and there
was a nest containing two nearly full-fledged
young. The nest was only a slight hollow,
lined with fine grass. I hid a short distance
off, and soon I heard the old bird chuckle
and call to the young, much like the com-
mon domestic hen does. The young crept
out of the nest, and crept slowly away, hid-
ing under the plants as they went. The
next day, May 25, I went out alone to the
swamp, and found two other nests contain-
ing young; the first had three young who
could fly a little, and the second two half-
fledged young. I was feeling rather dis-
couraged over the result, although I knew it
was very late for them. Going on farther to
a denser part of the swamp, I had seated

dense swamp east of Highland Park. We
had a good success, getting a set of four
Myrtle Warblers, two Black-billed Cuckoos,

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, etc. I started a
Woodcock from a clump of bushes, and she
circled around and around the place, and
seemed very disinclined to leave. I searched
carefully for the nest, but without success,
although I am certain one was there. The
Woodcock is a very wary bird, and you can
seldom surprise them. In fact they usually
surprise you by their sudden uprising and
the peculiar noise made by their wings.

The Woodcock is a summer resident here,
arriving the latter part of March and staying
till October. They are nocturnal and re-
main in dense underbrush unless flushed.

JS. H. Swales.

Detroit, Michigan. O. & O. Vol. 18, May. 1893 p.79

A Few Nests Collected at Cornwall, Vt.
Spring-1880. O.H.Parkhill.

Woodcock (Philohela minor). Collected May
4 tli. The nest was situated in a small piece
of hard woods, ten rods from a stream. It
was a slight affair made hy hollowing out a
place in the leaves, and contained four eggs
nearly ready to hatch. The old bird allowed
me to nearly tread upon her before she flew.

O.&O, XIV, Oct. 1889 p 150

myself on a hillock when I espied a nest
containing four eggs in a clump of bushes
under a small tree. The nest was composed
of dried grass and leaves, and was quite a
large structure. The eggs were very hand-
some, being a creamy buff, dotted with red-
dish brown, and were a trifle incubated. I
felt so elated over my find that I just stood
and looked at them for several minutes until
my senses came back, and then I packed
them carefully in my collecting box. On
June 8th I went out again with J. Claire
Wood, and we flushed several and Mr. Wood
shot two. Since then the swamp has been
burnt down and ploughed up. This was
my first and only set of eggs. On June 1,
1889, H. Allis and I went collecting in a

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With regard to the Forest and Stream editor's notion that this

thrusts it into the mud,
certain, when one eonsid-

Woodcoek is feeling with its bill vrhen it
it does not seem to me that it is at all

ers the well-known fact that sounds are much more reacily trans-
mitted through the medium of the cranial bones than directly
through the air, as can readily be perceived if one holds a sonor

ous body between the teeth. Walter Faxon, letter of August 8,

1889 .

Woodcocks Carrying their Young, their Feeding Grounds ailed t0 make a r ® s P ec . table eowa J“

B to a certainty by hunting over the

ks, and making large bags at times jdcocks requires a thorough knowl-

DOillt T atisvnlri lilrp t.n bpp rlifi- A turn i_ 1. . ® , .

and, a Wooidcock Hunt.

y III -Jv» ^ ^ ^ Wooster O ?oint , that • 1 S ?° Uld t0 . see , clls : d thif 5 can only be acquired by long

Editor Chicago IhELDi-In ohe/tf the late Issues of the mn?^U„sahie andlin “ D ?-““ s[wrt8m " out

Chicago Field, I notice you give a representation of the wood- e ^sions that will uphold my theory. “ * ° f huDtmg ’ and s °

cock carrying its young This is a subject which I would like to er a corn-field and took out of it fifty-
see more fully discussed and brought before your readers, by billed every bird ln the field. The
those whose experience with this bird have made them familiar , ough agaln y and took out thirty-six
with its habits. The mode of carrying I am satisfied is correct, Ja ® eB yerner, of Pittsburg, Pa., and
and am also satisfied from what I have seen that the entire brood f ground i n the Killbuck bottoms, and
is carried from place to place by the mother bird. As I spend L m0 rning Mr. Theo. Gray, of Alle-

it over the same ground precisely, and
geight birds. Last July I beat over
iroughly, but did not raise a feather,
irdner, of Mt. Vernon, N. Y., and my-
| I sent my red dog, Mack, into the
minutes, and about one hundred yards

nearly all my time in the field with my dogs, and have hunted
and killed a great many woodcocks, I have made it a point to
note their peculiar habits, from their first appearance here in the
Spring until their disappearance in the Fall; their feeding
grounds; time of moving from place to place; kinds of food and
where obtained; how to tell where likely to be found, and

last but not least, why more birds can be found in the dark than C“t “d 'kve bir^Hse out of the'corn

hv t.np. iffhr. at thp mnr»n A Ti\ A ^ j u _ _ .

by the light of the moon. No moonshine about this. As hundreds
of birds nest in this vicinity, I have had a great many opportun-

ities of observing the carrying process, and have frequently

jgot over into the corn, and in less than
think, thirty-seven birds. Two days

birds rise and fly away that looked as though their entire entrails
were hanging out,

seen Pittsburg, and myself, on the same

and from appearance seemed as large as the ^ 3^“ fhtve mTuHokedT^fThky
hnvfi fol fiwpil r.np.m pIacpItt qti/I v»ott a * . _ . . . ... , , , , ,

number again. Should this notice

is as to dates, they will see that the
las it, was in the right sign, was right,
dark.

trd, and they cannot bore, or rather the
If moist and loose when plowed it
the corn is large enough to shade the
Hoist all Summer. Here the birds can
er the corn is in tassel. The best fields
e found are composed of a black or gray
soil never holds the

crown of a cap. I have followed them closely, and have been
near to them when flying, and also when alighting with their
young. Have seen them carry from three to five at once, but

have never been able to detect whether the young held on by Woodcock is in locating its feeding-

“ e ‘ r b TL firit in 8 ; 6 g 80 C j° sely P a “° old etoo hard, others too soft, some too wetor

bird. The first instance that came under my observation was e that is objectionable. In corn-fields it
several years ago. A friend of mine, who was in very delicate Hmp thp irounds are Dlowed up and
health, came to me one day, in May and proposed a hunt for (il If t he|round is we P t when plowed,
squirrels. I accepted his invitation and we drove to the woods to- [“J B - ••

gether. After hitching the horse we separated, each one taking
his own course. I had gone but a short distance when my atten-
tion was drawn to my friend, who yelled to me, “ Look out.” I
turned around and beheld a woodcock passing within ten or fif-
teen feet of me. My friend’s gun was to his shoulder and in an
instant the bird fell to the ground. When struck, it looked as | fir „ vp , v or P i av
though it was blown into half a dozen pieces Approaching the ffash ln fl( J where the sedimen t

“ rdI ^. aS S £P r T d h °J T y0U , n ? ° neS a PP, arentl y about f0dr r a short time. An experienced hunter
nint , i g wingbrokenabout the first a fle i d whether it holds birds or not.

joint, and two of the young ones were killed. I have often ran ,„ nmp tn lncatinp- birds that I can tell

fonld 6 I? 0 * Wh f re MrdS that l00ked 80 lar S®, had dropped, and ! are birds in a fl ® ld by c i imbin g onto a
found three or four young ones. One peculiar circumstance I ^ ovpr tlle eorn t am now SDe aking of

have noticed, that I never saw a bird drop any more than one that f elds . bv observing the growthand color
had pin feathers on it. I believe after the young become a cer- Subserve where® the moTst and good
tam size they are carried as described in the issue mentioned. j Jy m fln I thp ob i e ct of vour search
My idea is, that when the parent bird is 6tartled or danger threat- L r b J s „ ru b p bave seen it quoted by
ens, she gathers her young together and moves oil with them, l o lk feeds onlv at night In this respect

“ngTn d the n davttoe StanCeS ' ° ther ^ W “ ^ take to ! t have killed hundreds with worm S P in

, 3e different kinds — the common angle-

Woodcocks change their feeding grounds at night, and I doubt -

if ever a woodcock took wing during the day, unless put up by
some unnatural Cuuse. This is why I mention the moon buei~
ness.

But

rm with black head and feet, and a small
. or grayish color, similar to the yellow

I blueve‘v e i y v \ m0Ye °“ a “f/ ° ight there is 110 “• The smalJrone

I believe very seldom, unless disturbed. „ K . „ JL

I|find that my best bags were made in the dark of the moon, of some benefit"^ 8

I will relate
to persons desiring
information of woodcocks feeding. During last season three or 1 year j 9
four birds remained close to my house, near a spring. Around
this spring were several large oak trees. A friend and myself
were seated under these trees one evening ; it was nearly dark
when I saw one of the birds alight near one of the trees. It sat
for a few moments very unconcerned, when it walked up to the
root of the tree and began jumping against it. We watched it
for a while, when I had a curiosity to see what it was doing. I
soon found that about fifteen or eighteen inches from the ground
there was quite a number of the last mentioned worms. I also
noticed that a cob-web on the tree at this point stopped the
worms on their upward course, and that the bird made the jumps
to catch them.

depending entirely on good luck
,me, and nine times out of ten come
^s, if a little judgment was used
and surroundings, plenty of birds
place and parallel with the P. F.
town as the Big Ditch. This ditch
ank is used as a road, and is on
her side are large corn-fields and
nd for two miles is, to all appear-
and timber for woodcocks as there
here is magnificent, but to find
of the question. I have never
d on this side of the ditch, while
;y yards of the ditch, and for its
nd, and bags from ten to forty

I the first freezing weather, after
all disappear in a single night. In
I. Mack, of Chicago, and myself,
!ew birds. We struck a corn-field,

i and so remarked to him. We
such a getting out of woodcock I
eing late when we began shooting,
Ion, it was necessary to hold close
y we made the best of, and we
plump birds. How many we left
iber did not seem diminished when
s first woodcock hunt, it was
ig them. A bird would get up
fact all around. His gun would
one, and at last he would fail to
birds,’’ he remarked, “I don’t
An hour’s drive brought us home,
d loading shells for the morrow,
idred birds would be brought to
tart was suggested and agreed
gilt, thinking of the good time
During the night I heard a
is of Mr. Mack’s bed-room. I
d it came from Mack himself,
le of my birds.” He evidently
had in the afternoon and of an
id thief being no other than my
“ up all the birds he could and
10 killed them. Morning came,
after Mr. Mack’s one hundred
gum-boots you don’t get a bird
lat red thief Mack comes around

II cripple him.” Mr. Mack had
during the night it had frozen
s find the entire day, all having

Killbuck. J{

$2 for six months; $1 for

With regard to the Forest and St
Woodcock is feeling with its bill vrhe
it does not seem to me that it is at
er<

the well-known fact that sounds

a

mitted through the medium of the eran
through the air, as can readily be pe
ous body between the teeth. Waite

ream editor's notion that the
n it thrusts it into the mud,
all certain, when one cons id-
re much more reacily trans-
lal bones than directly
reeived if one holds a sonor
r Faxon, letter of August 8,

1889.

Harry and I exchanged glances,
aer’s countenances.

“ Is there a train going toward Ph
trry.

“ Not until six o’clock a. m.” rep
’‘Well, we will take that,” I repli
We lit our cigars, and, with feelin:
ait daylight and the morning tra
aners would have been hard to tin
>ught struck me that this was no ]
wman a landlord, and that it wou
circumstances would permit, sh
ngaged him in conversation ; he d
; ducking yarns, characteristic of
5 rendezvous, to entice us to stay,
d some trash ducks up on the ma
■her and friends had remarked th
thought as long as we were dowi;
y, and if not successful we could t
Ing ducks it was too soon, also,
dge (a favorite sport) as they had
s rivers yet.

The term trash ducks, I subseque
icies that fed on the marshes.

We concluded to take his advice,
played in getting ready after b
eady been taken out of us — consi
g off. Not a duck did we see on
sek, and we were about turning b
cks near the shore.

1 Harry,” I remarked, “ paddle m
t>t, then I am ready for home.”
Now, Harry, be it known, was an
1 on the Delaware. Slowly we i
thin thirty-five yards I let them h:
h they both keeled over. “ Now
( >ut saying, when, “ thunder an
t,ook there.’’ I did look. Black
Hlards were getting up in every <j
itinctively we shook hands, and h
•and. Quietly we paddled our du
silently and in whispers we laic
* If these ducks act as they do I
f e must drive them away, then v
kirn, and I will show you some
*1 see how the land lays, for there
kt they are feeding in.”
bhe tide was low and it had aln
k si der able exertions we forced ou
Stalls, the noise of which every
e nch of mallards, black ducks, tea
numerous little ponds.

’"‘Let them go,” says Harry, “do
it before night.-” Every now ai
splendid chance but we restra
8 We succeeded at last in driving 1
“is no easy task as they were verj
disturbed much. Selecting tv
regained our boat, and discove'

and that otherwise I have failed to make a respectable count.

This I haye demonstrated to a certainty by hunting over the

same grounds daily for weeks, and making large bags at times jdeocks requires a thorough knowl-
described. There is one point that I should like to see dis- a this can only be acquired by long
cussed : Do woodcocks move singly or in wisps, as the snipes? I peaking, ninety-nine sportsmen out
am inclined to think the latter way the most plausable, and will bout this kind of hunting, and go
relate of three different occasions that will uphold my theory. ) depending entirely on good luck
Several years ago I heat over a corn-field and took out of it fifty- ’ •

two birds— am satisfied I killed every bird in the field. The
next morning I passed through again, and took out thirty-six
more. In July, 1878, Mr. James Verner, of Pittsburg, Pa., and
myself beat over a piece of ground in the Killbuck bottoms, and
never saw a bird. The next morning Mr. Theo. Gray, of Alle-
gheny, Pa., and myself beat over the same ground precisely, and

.me, and nine times out of ten come
■s, if a little judgment was used
and surroundings, plenty of birds
place and parallel with the P. F.
own as the Big Ditch. This ditch
>ank is used as a road, and is on
her side are large corn-fields and

before dinner bagged thirty-eight birds. Last July I beat over ,nd for two miles is, to all appear-

a i a i. . . i • i. x. 1 V. 1 — , ,1 i ,1 m >*n l po n fnn+Vior n 1 • in -■ Fir

a corn-field, and beat itthoroughly, but did not raise a feather.

The next day Mr. A. L. Gardner, of Mt. Vernon, N. Y., and my-
self went to this same field. I sent my red dog, Mack, into the
field, and in less than five minutes, and about one hundred yards
from where we stood, we counted five birds rise out of the corn
that the dog put up. We got over into the corn, and in less than
two hours we counted, I think, thirty-seven birds. Two days
later Mr. Howard Eaton, of Pittsburg, and myself, on the same
j ground, picked up the same number again. Should this notice
come before any of the parties I have mentioned, if they
will refresh their memories as to dates, they will see that the
moon, os the Dutchman has it, was in the right sign, was right,
i and as I have represented, dark.

Another peculiarity of the woodcock is in locating its feeding-
grounds. Some grounds are too hard, others too soft, some too wet or
too sour, or something else that is objectionable. In corn-fields it
depends altogether on the time the grounds are plowed up, and
also a great deal on the soil. If the ground is wet when plowed,
it becomes cloddy and hard, and they cannot bore, or rather the
worms leave the surface. If moist and loose when plowed it
holds its moisture until the corn is large enough to shade the
ground, and then keeps moist all Summer. Here the birds can
be found at any time after the corn is in tassel. The best fields
or feeding grounds I have found are composed of a black or gray
vegetable or sandy loam. Gravely or clay soil never holds the
birds unless there is a wash in the field where the sediment
lodges, and then only for a short time. An experienced hunter
can tell at a glance over a field whether it holds birds or not.

So accustomed have I become to locating birds that I can tell
almost instantly if there are birds in a field by climbing onto a
fence and looking around over the corn. I am now speaking of
first and second bottom fields ; by observing the growth and color
of the corn you can readily observe where the moist and good
spots are. Here you will find the object of your search,
leisurely boring away after his grub. I have seen it quoted by
authorities that the woodcock feeds only at night. In this respect
I would beg to differ. I have killed hundreds with worms in
their bills, and of three different kinds — the common angle-
worm, a long yellow worm with black head and feet, and a small
striped worm of a brown or grayish color, similar to the yellow
one mentioned. The yellow worm is to be found
in rotten logs and under the bark of logs. The smaller one
is frequently seen climbing around cob-webs. I will relate
a circumstance that may be of some benefit to persons desiring^. f or
information of woodcocks feeding. During last season three or ; y ear $9.
four birds remained close to my house, near a spring. Around
this spring were several large oak trees. A friend and myself
were seated under these trees one evening; it was nearly dark
when I saw one of the birds alight near one of the trees. It sat
for a few moments very unconcerned, when it walked up to the
root of the tree and began jumping against it. We watched it
for a while, when 1 had a curiosity to see what it was doing. I
soon found that about fifteen or eighteen inches from the ground
there was quite a number of the last mentioned worms. I also
noticed that a cob-web on the tree at this point stopped the
worms on their upward course, and that the bird made the jumps
| to catch them.

and timber for woodcocks as there
here is magnificent, but to find
of the question. I have never
d on this side of the ditch, while
-y yards of the ditch, and for its
nd, and bags from ten to forty
the first freezing weather, after
all disappear in a single night. In
3. Mack, of Chicago, and myself,
ew birds. We struck a corn-field,
and so remarked to him. We
such a getting out of woodcock I :
eing late when we began shooting,
ioD, it was necessary to hold close
y we made the best of, and we
plump birds. How many we left
iberdid not seem diminished when
"s first woodcock hunt, it was
ig them. A bird would get up
fact all around. His gun would
one, and at last he would fail to
birds,’’ he remarked, “ I don’t
An hour’s drive brought us home,
d loading shells for the morrow,
ndred birds would be brought to
tart was suggested and agreed
ght, thinking of the good time
During the night I heard a
as of Mr. Mack’s bed-room. I
it came from Mack himself,
le of my birds.” He evidently
had in the afternoon and of an
id thief being no other than my
: up all the birds he could and

10 killed them. Morning came,
after Mr. Mack’s one hundred

gum-boots you don’t get a bird
lat red thief Mack comes around

11 cripple him.” Mr. Mack had
during the night it had frozen
e find the entire day, all having

Killbuck.

six months;

for

With regard to the Forest and Stream editor's notion that the
Woodcock is feeling with its bill Yfhen it thrusts it into the mud,
it does not seem to me that it is at all certain, when one consid-
ers the well-known fact that sounds are much more reacily trans-
mitted through the medium of the cranial bones than directly
through the air, as can readily be perceived if one holds a sonor-
ous body between the teeth. Walter Faxon, letter of August 8,

1889.

Harry and I exchanged glances,
ler’s countenances.

“ Is there a train going toward Ph
irry.

“ Not until six o’clock a. m.” rep
“ Well, we will take that,” I repl
We lit our cigars, and, with feelin:
ait daylight and the morning tra:
oners would have been hard to tin
raght struck me that this was no ]
wman a landlord, and that it won
circumstances would permit, sh
ngaged him in conversation ; he d
; ducking yarns, characteristic of
5 rendezvous, to entice us to stay,
d some trash ducks up on the ma
■her and friends had remarked th
thought as long as we were dowi
y, and if not successful we could t
dng ducks it was too soon, also,
dge (a favorite sport) as they had
s rivers yet.

The term trash ducks, I subseque
scies that fed on the marshes.

We concluded to take his advice,
played in getting ready after b
eady been taken out of us — eons:
g off. Not a duck did we see on
3ek, and we were about turning b
eks near the shore.

‘ Harry,” I remarked, “paddle m
bt, then I am ready for home.”
Now, Harry, be it known, was an
1 on the Delaware. Slowly we e
thin thirty-five yards I let them h;
•l they both keeled over. “Now
( )ut saying, when, “ thunder an
took there.’’ I did look. Black
klards were getting up in every <j
itinetively we shook hands, and h
t md. Quietly we paddled our du
bl silently and in whispers we laic
If these ducks act as they do 1
F e must drive them away, then v
Firn, and I will show you some
p see how the land lays, for there
Ft they are feeding in.”

^Phe tide was low and it had aln
Wderable exertions we forced ou
Stalls, the noise of which every
e ncii of mallards, black ducks, tea
®s numerous little ponds.

Let them go,” says Harry, “ do
it before night.” Every now ai
“a splendid chance but we restra
8< We succeeded at last in driving t
ni s no easy task as they were very
Bin disturbed much. Selecting tv
regained our boat, and discove:

“Yes, of course, and if it was ni
e he is just the thing you want.”

I bought him, and in a few days
;s restless for the morning to daw
quired treasure. I was too impat

1 mule had been led up to the frc
d I was just about starting, whe
■ge flock of mallards had just lig
e garden, not two hundred yards.
With gun in hand, and my boy t<
ading the dog. A fence running
; excellent blind for me to creep u
!,me before firing. Notwithstandii ,
|ok time to notice the dog ; he seei
had hoped to see him inspired by
Uowed along as unconcernedly as
i. In a minute or two more I fou
e the flock of ducks, and not n
ere were seven or eight of them h
make doubly sure, I rested my g
ate aim and fired ; the result was,
My dog dropped at the report, or
hen I looked for him he was lying
jpen leaf. Was it from fear? said i
ent only ; thus I flattered myself u
e dead ducks, and urged him to g '
knew but few dog words at that
lere stood the dog looking me in
What do you sa — y?” I began t(
ver saw ducks before ; was this tl
go for them? So I took up a piec
iter close by them. At once he j
ized the stick and brought it to m
11 , now I was boiling over ; such i
lieve lived ! I kept my temper, h<
is with a lump of dirt. I thougl
thing else, the dog would certair
bring the duck; as soon as thedi
jumped the dog, and absolutely
ids, but not noticing them at a
s search, he came back to me. I
|ch a walloping I gave the beast,
to the creek he plunged, swam to
wn ou the bank looked at me. I
Ihether or not, I did, and thus rid<
is brute.

On another occasion my sight was
liculous mistake. I bought a nur
ey were necessary, but I had moi
oper thing to have all the most aj
e sporting fraternity. These decc
e evening, but the exact spot w
low, so riding along the banks the
sed to be a flock of ducks, and c
ihort range, I fired ; not a bird mov
y of them. I fired again, withsam
; and firing two more barrels, to i
en riddling my inoffensive decoys
I often laugh when I think of my
e brother of the manager of the
, and as he was a constant hunter
ih for miles around. He had sever:
t with them was to be certain of
nt he placed me on a stand, whi
ough a small picket of swampy gr
l not been felled, and where he 1
the pea-field were in the habit o
■t of the fence where I, was place
uld run to get out in the forest
;re that the tracks were plainly to
ocked_the top, rails off in their f.re-

To make a good bag of woodcocks requires a thorough knowl-
edge of the feeding spots, and this can only be acquired by long
experience. Comparatively speaking, ninety-nine sportsmen out
of a hundred know nothing about this kind of hunting, and go
stumbling through the timber, depending entirely on good luck
and their dogs to find their game, and nine times out of ten come
home with empty bags, whereas, if a little judgment was used
and a glance taken at the soil and surroundings, plenty of birds
might be found. South of this place and parallel with the P. F.
W. & C. R. R., runs what is known as the Big Ditch. This ditch
j is ab ?ht four miles long; the bank is used as a road, and is on
'' tbe ri g bt or west side. On either side are large corn-fields and
timber lots; on the west side and for two miles is, to all appear-
ance, as fine a piece of ground and timber for woodcocks as there
is in the world. The hunting here is magnificent, but to find
what you hunt for is out of the question. I have never
known but one bird to be killed on this side of the ditch, while
on the east side, and within fifty yards of the ditch, and for its
entire length, birds can be found, and bags from ten to forty
made any day from J uly 4 until the first freezing weather, after
which not a bird can be found ; all disappear in a single night. In
the Fall of ’ 18, my friend, Joe H. Mack, of Chicago, and myself
started one afternoon to get a few birds. We struck a corn-field
which I was satisfied held birds, and so remarked to him. We
put the dogs into the corn and such a getting out of woodcock I
never saw before or since. It being late when we began shooting, ’
and having very little ammunition, it was necessary to hold close
and shoot fast. The opportunity we made the best of, and we
brought to bag forty-three fine plump birds. How many we left
I am not able to 6 ay,but the number did not seem diminished when
we quit. This being Mr. Mack’s first woodcock hunt, it was
rather amusing to see him among them. A bird would get up
behind him, one in front, and in fact all around. His gun would
go up at this one, then at that one, and at last he would fail to ;
shoot at any. “Confound the birds,’’ he remarked, “I don’t
know which one to shoot at.” An hour’s drive brought us home.
After supper, Mr. M. commenced loading shells for the morrow,
making the remark that one hundred birds would be brought to
bag during the day . An early start was suggested and agreed
upon, and we retired for the night, thinking of the good time
we would have on the morrow. During the night I heard a
great rumpus in the directions of Mr. Mack’s bed-room. I
listened for a moment, and found it came from Mack himself.

‘ Stop that red thief, be stole one of my birds.” He evidently
was dreaming about the hunt we had in the afternoon and of an
incident that took place. The red thief being no other than my
red setter Mack, who would pick up all the birds he could and
bring them to me, no matter who killed them. Morning came,
and we were soon on our way after Mr. Mack’s one hundred
birds. “ Will bet you a pair of gum-boots you don’t get a bird
to-day.” “ Well, I will, and if that red thief Mack comes around
me to-day and steals my birds, I’ll cripple him.” Mr. Mack had
misconstrued my meaning, for during the night it had frozen
very hard and not a bird did we find the entire day, all having
left for a more congenial clime. Killbuck. * l |

The Chicago Field $4 a year; $2 for six months; $1 for
three months. Three copies one year $9.

Woodcock and Turtle.

While on a collecting trip at Gardner’s
Lake, New London County, Conn., last
Spring, we made some enquiries of an old
gentleman about Birds of Prey, Ducks,
etc., about the lake. After giving us the
desired information the old gentleman sta-
ted that he was a few years ago driving
slowly down the road when he heard some-
thing “ flopping ” its wings over the wall.
Thinking it might be a wounded bird he
got over the wall and found a Woodcock
struggling in the mud, flapping its wings
laboriously. Taking it for granted the
bird was wounded, he seized it and in pull-
ing it out found that its foot was fast, and
he only secured it by leaving its foot be-
hind. This state of things surprised the
old man not a little, and while he stood
there he noticed the mud moving where
he had drawn the bird out. He secured a

hoe which was in his wagon and began to
dig in the mud ; finding there was some-
thing alive there, he worked until he
brought to terra firma a good sized Snap-
ping Turtle. It would appear that the
Woodcock in search of food had walked
over the soft mud, and the turtle, also in
search of a dinner, had seized the Wood-
cock by the foot, and would have taken it
under only the hole was not deep enough
for the mud turtle to get the bird below

the surface ; lienee the struggle for life.

CL&D. vlll. Aug. 1883. p. 6^

An incident of the blizzard of last March was related to
me one morning recently. It will be remembered that
storm was the most severe that has visited this section in a
half century. All business was at a stand-still, railroads
were paralyzed, and for two days the sole occupation was
shoveling snow. The storm occurred about the middle of
the month, just at the time when the woodcocks are moving
northward, and no doubt the birds suffered severely and
many must have been killed. On the corners of Montague
and Court streets, in Brooklyn, a colored man was cleaning
i i the sidewalk of the piles of snow, using one of the broad
wooden snow shovels for the purpose, and in one of the
shovelfuls, as he threw it toward the gutter, was a partially
chilled woodcock. As the bird was freed from the snow it
fluttered away for a few rods and fell again in the soft snow,
burying itself as it fell. It was followed and captured but,
being held between the captor’s hands long enough to be-
come warmed, finally escaped. It was seen by quite a num-
ber, for it was shown to the passers-by by the colored man

who had it. Mr

j New York. >/»( xx y: -fr*. /<f f U. Jacob Pentz.

^ /y- i»yf

( IV

I VOL. XXXII.— No. 86.

1 No 318 Broadway, New Iork.

WAYS OF THE WOODCOCK ,

T HE notes on the habits of the woodcock printed in
another column will undoubtedly bring a snide to
the lips of many a reader, yet they are deserving of a
thoughtful consideration, which shall winnow the facts
from the fancies.

We really know very little about the private life of the
woodcock, or indeed about that of any of our best known
game birds. A few of the most obvious facts with re-
gard to each species have been seized and written of so
fully that we are all of us prone to think that these few
facts comprise all that there is to the bird’s life. The
same thing— but in a greater degree— is true of the habits
of our game animals. Take for example the question of
the woodcock’s boring. How many have seen the bird
do this? Of those who have seen the operation, how
many have been able to decide for themselves whether
he knows the position of the worm by the sense of touch
or that of hearing? The familiar twitter or whistle is
another point about this bird concerning which there are
diverse opinions. A correspondent a week or two since
expressed the confident opinion that it was made by the
bird’s wings; we believe that it is not made by the wings,
and could give reasons which to us appear conclusive.

“Paul Pastnor’s” theory that the woodcock perforates the
ground and then imitates the pattering of rain to induce
the worms to visit the surface, appears fanciful in the
extreme, but the error may be in his conclusions and not
in his observations. At the same time we should like to
have a little more testimony as to the distance at which
an earthworm is visible, even, on a bright moonlight
night and through a pair of strong opera glasses.

We wish that more of our sportsmen would devote a
portion of their time to the study of the birds and mam-
mals that they pursue with so much ardor, and that the
results of their observations might be set down and pub-
licly recorded. Almost every man who shoots or fishes
much, has seen a great many interesting things which
would be of value to others, and these observations ought
to be given to those whose tastes lead them in the same
direction. It is a remarkable fact that we still lack full
and complete life histories of birds so iamiliar as the
woodcock, the rufEed grouse and the quail, and of mam-
mals so well known as the Virginia deer, the red fcx and
the common gray hare. V no will take hold of one of
these species and supply thencecteifeeefe?

@ng and §m\.

u. •*- •

STUDY of woodcock.

the woodcock I h ^ S ™ e uttie more about it than
seems to me as if I kne ^which almost baffles the
when I began. It 1S a , i ; storv because it seems
efforts of the student of ousnesi-rof being watched.

mg. Som ® fLjXutemeiits of well-known writers on
| monly received statemem , , t for advancing one

natural history. ! may ,, g e nt paper, but I con-

theS ^ the course of modern investigation, have

become science believe the woodcock has the

Among other not verified this theory

power of song. To be ® L „_ v “ to do it . I have heard

•at, but I ttmkl ".“it Jtl I the responsibility

SlKSrtJiSK*. However, .hat
time. „ i ^

_ — ; — t ar-jont a moonlight night on a certain

Not long smce I ground for woodcock, making

water, a famous breeding g The record of i t may

a nocturnal study of th ® se ’ igllt w hen the moon

not be uninteresting. htnolible. In my pocket

was full, so as to have .all th me &fwhi*.

desoribed pres '

““fit the road j«.t

river, and crossing a wide not far f r0 m the river,

covert I have spoken of It gtream which ran

and was abundantly wate a , devious digression,
through it with “^^J^fdfrs birchIs?hemlocksand

The covert was composed mf late in

a few cedars. When 1 1 Reached the jroui i and nQt

the afternoon. The an was oppress y i sa t

a sound broke the absolute ^ness oi^ ^ ^ ^
down on a little kno , mosquitoes which hovered

away the persistent clo swarmed into the cloud

around me. But in yam, ? of its fragrance. I had
of tobacco smotoas if that remained for me

SX wTs mVinTnd be n ar the inevitable affliction as best

1 Presently I heard

fa°n 8 cT Pa is I S liste P ned y there was a f amiliar sound of wMstl-

a feather ^ a

lightly as a
where I sat, not six feet

from me. I remamed absolutely “^mniess, P into

the insatiable mosquitoes to d woodcock

all the exposed portions of my body. Then

stood for a moment perfec ,7, b arB yard cock, its pert
it began to strut ey« glistening

little head nodding and g ° of my presence,

like beads. It evidently had no n° U< f gt ® mK ' i n 1 pulse to
though, between »w';'«l“ ;““jT„ Hv ,ub lobbliug

be? ions W

cane was gone. ,, d sent a t least a dozen

I slapped myself frantically, wor i d Then, jump-

half ^ -gorged mosquitoes out ; o tl covert . ' Near the edge
ing up I took a walk a S f fc w f eet only and then came

a woodcock flushed, flew a , a b if wounded. I

down and fluttered along t g d where I was.

knew her young we *® fp itaeonv fiadmo effect upon me
Seeing that her counterfeit a S?^Xup one o£ h £ r con -
the mother bird returned, p dew awa y with it.

cealed fledglings with her fe burden; but in

SKyS.’S 1 *?. »!■ ™ty »”* * h “

ceeded in giving me the shP- theories, with

Placing myself m the x y fQr a |, out fifteen min-
flushed a bird I kept perfect y £ f ft no t es at

utes and then begantobh.w a succession o^ ^ ^
regular intervals on the e. da - util aud stopping to

utes Master Cock, stepping ;’ ed f rom his hiding

listen at almost every step, em f previously taken
place and came toward me to the best of

the opera glass from c ‘ f iend whose actions

advantage every modonofmy ^tlem®®"’ alld then he
were exceedingly, amusing. the ^ ground and close his
would Stop, jeBthislong bffl on thejiro^ ^ ^
eyes as if going to sleep, v oQck Wg headj as if trying i

in a circle, trai . o£ Nie opinion that he was

to locate the sound. I am _of .the op^ ^ gome vagU0

actuated, not only by Jfiistle with the note of

thefemile. it last an inadvertent movement on my part

startled him, and away he fle ^ occas ion, and at other

the course of the afternoon I ^ have men-

woodcock from the banks erf ttie in the 8oil

proved to m“thTthe birds had been feeding when dis-
turbed.

diately pounced upon and ^^^^it^ip^earance,

that certain birds axe a gie t wiU take a sharpened
bipeds without teatneis. j 1T nhpr of times, m

stfck and drive it into the ’ ground a n® « ^ t ^
a spot which is prolific wdh worms, a wiU find

ground with the stick for a f ew ^ that they

that the worms will come to the smt^ , made .

will come up through t . ,, , tapping of the

I account for it by the suppoatum that ^tapp^g

stick somehow affects the wor worms come to

of rain, and it is a well-known fact that worm of

the surface of the ground wh +heir borings, then,

the woodcocks after they g “^ d tQ delude the worms

srrssra* w

The worms, being ’ i t ^ is not true, will

All this “ a y« ee X a se sUtThow a woodcock can grasp
some naturalist please st ... . con fined in a solid,

and devour a worm when its biU is contin 3 tQ

tiglit-flttmg tunnel of soil, and also m strike

k5owth..j».n»> wk«. >t .

‘wo”“l V TSbml “

found another open place y watching for perhaps

sssaarse? are

and examined the XX^asimpossible that the bird
gether, and, of course, it w ^* ™ P ° v b oring I do not

■*

io o k 4 likely place. i*i n nront,

Just at dusk however the*o was a

mmrmm

notTsfa^ve & S
events Bus peculiar acu flights o£ the woodcock,

the moon— for floating down into our midst, except to
give us a suij>rise . and eoulTSTc it in the bird’s
“JT^here t'hl woodcock stood for ten or fifteen seconds

branches P over which the woodcock had disappeared, and

'SISmssS

i«oth beean to “bore” for worms-an operation I had
never sefn before, and a curious performance it was.

I The birds would rest their bills upon the mudand stand
in this nosition for several seconds, as it listening, men,
^ ha swift movement >

nreslnct of a worm in their bills when they were with-

ass: sarsartars

is a “likely place.” cover until the moon went

Although I remained in t feed ing which I have

SoLr There Vere —

have been^he tonvematfon of the little community I have

b6 SSSt a

the covert, and I crept forward to se^ instead of flee-

of my surprise and constern^io ^ threatening

ing, the animal turned uj P nou°-h to perceive that it
manner. I lingered ^^^I the vicinhy in the short-
was a skunk and tte ntin)eg amaz ingly bold ,

est time possible. okum. s a T s t0 realize that they
especially in the summer. -pyi dc ntly the same motive
are held in universal r . es P®® j to the woodcock covert
had brought this particular ^skunk to the to . r

which had brought me na Y ’ , • »| e skunk’s case

the habits of the birds f^odcoc k cl ickforbreak-
by the pleasmg possibility scientist was indignant

fast. No wonder the four-leggea sciem brot her!

at the meddling 1 “ p ? rtl i “p f fiatelv after the moon set and

SSi ‘ fiTS CSifK ,ore 1

discover all I want to know Paul Pastnor.

a

2 4

/wo VA.xxxn/ Al x.

THE WOODCOCK AND^f HE^WORM.

Editor Forest and Stream:

The following, coming from Audubon, ought to bear a
good deal of weight on the question raised in yonr last
issue as to how the woodcock get their food from the mud
by boring. He says on page 20, Yol. YI. (of the edition
of Roe, Lockwood & Son, New York, 1801): “The food
of the woodcock consists principally of large earthworms,
of which it swallows as many in the course of a night as
would equal its own weight. It obtains its food by per-
forating the damp earth or mire, and also by turning the
dead leaves in the woods and picking up the worms that
lie beneath them. On watching a number of individ-
uals probing mud in which a number of earthworms had
been introduced, in a tub placed in room partially dark-
ened, I observed the birds plunged their bills up to the
nostrils, but never deeper; and from the motion of the
parts at the base of the mandibles I concluded that the
bird has the power of working the extremities so as to
produce a kind of vacuum, which it enables it to seize
the worm at one end and suck it into its throat before it
withdraws its bill, as do curlews and godwits.”

Some summers ago, while shooting woodcock, I ob- ,
served some birds in an old field ditch under some wil-
lows; these birds were in the open ditch and were feeding
or boring in the mud; it was early in the morning, but
the sun was well up, so that I had full chance to see them;
they were not twenty to twenty-five feet away. These
birds acted as Audubon relates that his tame birds did,
that is, they ran the bill deep into the mud, held it there,
and appeared to suck in with their throats, but on the
withdrawal of the bill I never saw the worm. Now with
snipe, I have often seen the' worm after the bill is with-
drawn, and more often have taken the worms from their
mouths after they were shot.

There is one point I don’t understand in regard to the
construction of the woodcock’s bill, nor can I reconcile
it with the sucking theory, and that is that, unlike the
snipe’s, the woodcock’s upper bill overhang’s the lower, I
or more properly speaking, the lower bill is shorter and
fits into the upper; and if lam right, it is stiff at the
ends and not soft and capable of being opened like the
snipe’s. Now if this is so, how can he open his bill while
in the mud to suck, and not open the whole length of it?
A snipe can; he opens just the very end and makes a
tube of his bill. I have not a woodcock head with me,
and an old one would be too dry to surely test this point,
but I am quite sure a woodcock’s bill is as I describe it.

Boston, Mass. E. B.

Editor Forest and Stream:

“A Study of Woodcock,” by “Paul Pastnor,” in Forest
and Stream for July 18, is certainly a remarkable con-
tribution to the literature of the subject of which it
treats. Indeed, one hesitates to take the writer seriously
or to feel quite sure that his “little old wood witch hob-
bling about with a very long black cane,” did not befog
his senses by some potent spell, under the influence of
which he dreamed, instead of saw, the curious things
which he describes so pleasantly. But, as he truly ob-
serves, “many mirth-provoking theories, in the course of
modern investigation, have become science,” and it would
be not less unsafe than ungenerous to positively ridicule
or discredit any of his observations or theories, however
fanciful they may seem. Moreover, most of them, as I
shall presently show, are by no means as new as their
author apparently thinks. For convenience of discussion,;
the leading points in his article may be briefly restated!
and considered as follows:

(1) That the woodcock possibly has a song. There is no i
doubt about this, for the fact has been recorded and more \
or less freely commented on by several observers. (See
American Sportsman, IV., 1874, p. 19; the same, pp. 41,
Torrey’s “Birds in the Bush,” pp. 223-225; Nuttall's
Manual, “Water Birds,” pp. 196-197). The bird sings in
the air during the mating season, in the evening twi-
light, rising in a spiral course to the height of three or
four hundred feet, thence descending in zigzag lines, at
the same time uttering warbling notes, winch, to my
ears, at least, are very sweet and musical, recalling the
sound produced by a water whistle such as boys sell in
the streets of our cities. I have witnessed this perform-
ance many times at various places, and on several occa-
sions have traced the bird’s flight from the ground to the
highest point which it reached and back to earth again.

(2) That both the European and American woodcock
pick up and carry off their young is also a fact attested
by many observers, although writers differ in their im-
pressions as to the way the thing is done, some asserting
that the chick is carried in the parent’s bill; others, on
her back; others, in her claws, and still others, that it is
held pressed close to her body between her thighs. The
last view seems to be supported by the best evidence,
although it is not improbable that the method varies at
different times. An article on the subject in the Zoolo-
gist (third series, Yol. III., pp. 433-440) is accompanied
by on illustration, depicting the European woodcock
carrying its y oung very much as “Paul Pastnor” describes,

(3) I have never seen anything to indicate that the
woodcock has a strongly developed bump of curiosity;
but there seems to be no reason for challenging your cor-
respondent’s observations on this point, which are cer-
tainly very interesting and apparently quite conclusive.

(4) The assumption that the woodcock is only semi-
nocturnal, 'although doubtless, contrary to the general
impression of sportsmen, is perhaps correct. I have
never detected a wild bird in the act of boring in the
day time, but in the stomachs of several specimens,
killed at about mid-day I have found fragments of earth
worms. This would seem to be strong presumptive proof
of diurnal feeding, for earth worms must be very rapidly
digested in the stomach of a healthy woodcock.

(5) It is certainly possible that the evening flights of
woodcock may be occasionally undertaken, as your cor-
respondent believes, simply to enjoy “a mad, merry
whirl in the air;” but nothing that I have seen warrants
such a conclusion. On the contrary, after observing
these flights on many occasions and at various places
and seasons, I am convinced that the birds rise at even-
ing from the thickets in which they have spent the day
merely to seek richer but more exposed feeding grounds,
where they dare not trust themselves by daylight. The
fact that “Paul Pastnor’s” birds flew into open meadow
is significant in this connection.

(6) The assumption that the woodcock does not secure
its food by boring, but that the holes which it makes in
the mud are intended to serve as passages through which

iearthworms may be lured to their fate by the simulated
isound of rain, produced by the subsequent dancing and
fluttering of the bird on the surface above, is apparently
an original, and certainly a rather startling theory.
From the nature of the case such a theory cannot be dis-
proved, but it may be discredited, partly on the ground
that observations made in the field at night, even in the
..clearest moonlight and with the aid of a good glass, can-
not be wholly reliable, partly by evidence that the bird
sometimes gets its food in simpler ways.

Audubon , ‘ 1 watching several individuals probing mud in
which a number of earth worms had been introduced, in
a tub placed in a room partially darkened,” concluded
“from the motion of the parts at the base of the mandi-
bles * * * that the bird has the power of working their
extremities so as to produce a kind of vacuum, which
enables it to seize the worm at one end and suck it into
its throat before it withdraws its bill, as do curlews and
godwits (“ Birds of America,” Yol. VI., pp. 20-21). I am
not aware that this supposition has. been since veri-
fied, although it does not seem improbable that the wood-
cock, without withdrawing its bill, may sometimes suck
up very small earth worms or other minute animals found
in soft mud. However this may be, it certainly fre-
quently, if not habitually, employs a different method,
at least with earth worms of fair s.ze.

In July, 1878, I saw a live woodcock in the possession
of Mr. C. J. Maynard. He had it from a boy who flushed
it in a garden, whence it flew against the side of a house,
falling sufficiently stunned to be easily captured. It
recovered in a short time and was placed in a large
box, prepared for its reception by covering the bottom
several inches deep with loam, sinking a basin of water
in the center, and planting tall living weeds about the
back and sides. When I first looked in the bird was
squatting among the weeds, nor did any motion on my i
part avail to cause it to shift its position , save by
shrinking a little closer to the ground, but when
a live screech owl was brought and held against the wires
that covered the front of the cage, the woodcock at once
rose and advanced to meet its vis-A-vis. Singularly
enough the owl seemed to be the more frightened of the
two. Indeed, the woodcock showed no perceptible fear.
After the removal of the owl the woodcock ran about
freely, exploring all the corners of its limited domain,
and probing the earth vigorously, but apparently with-
out success, although it left no spot untried. Its long

t

bill was thrust downward with wonderful rapidity and
on every side in quick succession, the motion strongly re-
sembling that of a man spearing eels. Then the bird
would take a step or two and try again. Sometimes it
would stop and apparently listen with . its head held
slightly on one side, the ear directed downward. Again
it would stamp with its feet quickly and forcibly, several
times in succession, then hold its head very near the
ground, evidently listening for the movements of sus-
i pected worms beneath, for, immediately afterward, it
twice probed rapidly and closely over the spot to which
its ear had been applied. It rarely stood erect, and
i moved with a skulking gait, the head drawn in between
! the shoulders and slightly raised and lowered, with a
nodding motion, between each step. When frightened,
it held its tail nearly erect and spread to the utmost the
down lower coverts, drooping beneath the tail feathers
in a vertical, fan-shaped fringe. When undisturbed, and
always when feeding, the tail was depressed and closed.
Mr. Maynard told me that the bird ate half a pint of
earth worms twice each day.

It will be observed that during the observations just
; recorded, I did not actually see the woodcock secure an
earth worm; in fact, it is quite certain that of the many
I thrusts which it made while I was watching it, none was
successful, for I stood within a few feet of the cage into
which a strong light penetrated freely. If I remember
; rightly, Mr. Maynard said that no earth worms had been
put into the cage for several hours previous to my visit,
and that the bird had probably nearly or quite exhausted
its last supply. Hence its ill success in boring had no
special significance. The attitude of listening was most
suggestive, however, and the subsequent rapid and ex-
citing boring about the spot to which the bird’s ear had
been applied convinced me that its stamping was simply
for the purpose of startling the worms and inducing them
to betray their whereabouts by the sound, however slight,
of their movements beneath the surface. Robins listen
in a similar way before locating and dragging forth an
earth worm. They also sometimes stamp just before
listening, although this action is not as vigorous and
strongly marked on their part as it was with the wood- j
cock. If the latter stamped for the purpose of simulat- \

! ing the sound of rain, and thereby inducing the worms
! to come to the surface, why did it not, after executing
its “war dance,” remove a step or two, or, at least, as-
sume a position of watching instead of listening and im-
mediately boring again?

Fortunately it is needless to multiply arguments in
support of this view, for Mr. Maynard actually saw his
bird, after stamping and listening, “turn either, to the
right or left or take a step or two forward, plunge his
bill into the earth and draw out a worm which he would
swallow, then repeat this performance until all the worms i
were eaten.” (“Birds of Eastern North America,” pp.
374, 375). Then this statement proves that the woodcock j
is perfectly able to “withdraw a worm from the ground [

, with its bill,” despite “Paul Pastnor’s” incredulity on j
that point; while taken in connection with the other facts
and arguments above detailed, it also proves that the
“war dance” serves — at least sometimes — the purpose
which I have explained.

Since writing the above I have come upon the follow-
ing in an early number (Vol. I., No. 16, p. 251) of Forest
and Stream:

“Did our readers ever see a woodcock ‘boring?’ "We
have, and this is how he did it: Once on a time we sur-
prised one of these gentry at his matutinal occupation,
and so intent was he that he never noticed our presence.
We had always supposed that he thrust his long bill into
| the moist earth and drew out his grub, snipe-fashion,

| and swallowed it; but no, he pegged away vigorously at
; the ground, something as woodpeckers hammer, digging
deeper and deeper, until he actually stood on his head to
reach the greatest depth. Then when he had one hole
bored he began another, and so continued until he had
| made nine, as [we ascertained by counting afterward.
But never a worm or grub did he draw forth from sub-
terranean sources. He had been merely preparing his j
little stratagem, setting his traps, so to speak, and when I

all was ready he laid down on his stomach, with his bill
Hat to the ground, and commenced beating the perfor-
ated earth violently with his wings. Presently a little
worm or a grub or other insect came to the surface, and
peeiang above the edge of one of the holes was inconti-
nently sucked into the long protruding bill. Directly
afterward a red well-scoured angle worm was victim-
med— we could see it distinctly as it passed into the bill—
and possibly others would have followed had not our
; stupid dunderhead of a setter worked up on the scent
and flushed the bird.”

This note, which was apparently written by Mr. Chas.
Hallock, the then managing editor of Forest and
Stream, curiously confirms as well as anticipates “Paul
Pastnor’s” observations. Although it does not mention
the “rain” theory, it undeniably gives the latter much
added probability. Indeed, if Mr. Hallock (?) was de-
ceived in his impressions, . the behavior of his bird may be
fairly regarded as proving that the woodcock some-
times gets its food in the way that “Paul Pastnor” main-
tains.

Before concluding I should like to add a word about
the whistling sound which the woodcock makes when
flying. In your editorial remarks in the issue of July 18
you say that you “believe that it is not made by the
wings, and could give reasons which to us appear
conclusive.” Will you kindly give these reasons?
I must . confess that nothing in connection with
the habits of this interesting bird seems to me
surer than that its shrill silvery whistle, which so
thrills the heart of every sportsman, is produced
by the wings. My grounds for this conviction are: (1)
That I have over and over again had the same experience
as that given by your correspondent, “ H. D. N.” (Forest
and Stream, Vol. XXXII., No. 25, July 11, 1889, p. 510),
of shooting birds that did not whistle and finding that
they were without the small, stiff, attenuated primary
quills, while in no instance have I ever known a bird
! which lacked these quills to make the least whistling-
sound; although I do not deny — indeed, I have seen
repeated instances of the fact— that a full-plumaged
woodcock possessing these quills sometimes rises without
whistling. (2) That twice upon picking up wounded
woodcock by their bills I have had them beat their wings
vigorously as if flying, producing at the same time the
usual shrill whistle. One of these birds flapped so slowly
that the whistle was not continuous, but on the contrary,
made up of closely connected, but still separate, notes,
each of which could be distinctly associated with a stroke
of the wing. In both instances I held the bird's mandi-
bles tightly together.

Surely nothing could be more conclusive than this.
Assuming that it settles the origin of the sound, we are
led naturally to consider what advantage a bird derives
from it ability to whistle with its wings, for it is an uni-
versally-admitted law of nature that no highly specialized
or peculiar function is developed in any animal except to
serve some definite purpose, either of use or ornament.
Now the attenuated primaries, as I prefer to call them,
whistling quills, are present and equally developed in
young as well as old birds of both sexes, and at all seasons
excepting during the moult. It is evident, then, that
they are not secondary sexual characters. The woodcock
is also the only member of its family with which I am
familiar which does not habitually and frequently utter
some vocal whistle or call when flying. As far as is
known the love-song already described, a harsh, night-
hawk-like paip, made only when the bird is on the
ground, and chiefly, if not wholly, by the male during
the mating season, and a low put’ l, given in connection
with the paip, are the only vocal notes which the wood-
cock utters. Why then may not its wing- whistling serve
the same purpose as the vocal calls of other waders, viz.,
to inform its companions of its movements and approxi-
mate position? This, at least, has seemed to me a logical
inference from the facts just stated.

Cambridge, Mass. WILLIAM Brewster

69

(StL Cd^K.1

L /..U WAYS

OF THE WOODCOCK.

T N his interesting paper on the woodcock, published in
our Natural History columns, Mr. Brewster requests
our views on certain habits of the bird. The two points
of especial interest are the boring and the whistle, or
twitter, so well known to shooters, and about which such
diverse opinions are held.

We have only once seen the woodcock bore in the wild
state. The bird, started by a companion, alighted within
6 or 8ft. of where we were standing, ran a step or two,
stopped, turned its head on one side, stood so for an in-
stant as if listening, and then plunged its bill into the
mud. it at once withdrew it, and raising the point of the
bill, appeared to be swallowing, but as its back was to-
ward us we could not see just what it did.

We have, however, seen the woodcock bore in captiv-
ity. The operation, which was performed with great
: deliberation, was repeated many times, and was wit-
nessed on several different days, being always done in
the same manner. The bird introduced the point of his
bill into the damp earth at an angle of about 80 degrees,
and by a series of slow pushes buried it to the base.
While doing this, his left foot was slightly advanced and
his body inclined downward. When the bill was fairly
buried, the bird stood perfectly still. He looked as if he
were listening, and we thought it quite probable that he
was doing so. It seemed likely also that he was feeling,
employing both senses to detect any movement in the
earth beneath him. The apparent sensitiveness of the
bill in the woodcock, as in some other waders, appeared
to us to justify the impression that the sense of touch as
well as of hearing came into play. If the bird found no
worm, he withdrew his bill, and again plunged it into
the earth at a little distance further on. If a worm was
felt, or some sound or motion indicated that one was
near, he partly withdrew his bill, and, altering its direc-
tion, plunged it in again and drew out the worm. The
operation of deglutition seemed to begin as soon as the
point of the bill touched the worm. A movement of the
bases of the upper and lower mandibles indicated that he

had a worm, and as the bill was withdrawn the two
came together again and again very rapidly, and almost
as soon as the bill was fairly clear of the earth the end of
the worm disappeared down the bird’s throat. It ap-

peared, when the bird made his first thrusts into the
ground, as if they were tentative, a deliberate thrust fol-
lowed by a moment of waiting, another thrust and then
another wait, in all perhaps three or four motions before
the bill was buried to its base. This slow action we took
to be an exploration by the tip of the bill for motion in
the earth, at first near the surface and then deeper and
deeper. When the bird had learned that there was* a
worm in the soil there was no hesitation. The bill was
: buried by a sharp quick thrust, about which there was no
uncertainty. After devouring all the worms that it
j could, this bird commonly cleansed its bill by means of
its feet, and then washed it in water by gently shaking
its head. This bird, which weighed six ounces, devoured
eight ounces of worms in twenty-four hours.

The cause of the whistle of the woodcock has long been
a mooted point. There is no doubt that in rising' the
bird makes a noise with its wings, which might perhaps
be called a whistle, but the sound to which we refer is the
well known ringing note, as often heard in the woodcock
cover, and which sometimes closely resembles the twit-
ter of the kingbird. A crow, a robin, an English sparrow
and a pigeon all make a noise with their wings, and so
does the woodcock, but this sound, we believe, is not to be
confounded with the other and better known note of the
springing bird. We said last week that we believed that
this sound was vocal, and that we could give reasons for
this belief, which appeared to us conclusive. We came
to this conclusion in October, years ago, when we one
day shot a woodcock and broke its wing close to the
body. Having a puppy at home we captured the bird
alive in order to work the young dog on it. While at-
tempting to catch it in our hands it ran ahead of us, now
and then springing into the air as a wounded bird will,

! trying to support itself on its uninjured wing, and at each
attempt to rise from the ground whistling. To us it ap-
peared impossible that this one wing, which from the
circumstances could not have been moved rapidly or it
would have turned the bird quite over, should have made
this sound.

At another time we captured a wing-broken bird which
we held in the hand in the house; by a sudden spring it
slipped from our grasp and fell to a chair, a distance of
a foot or two. As it struggled to release itself and fell,
it uttered the well-known whistling note. Subsequently,
when this same bird was released on the ground before
the young dog, it sprang into the air, using its uninjured
wing as before, and whistling. This we have seen a
number of times, and with many different wing-broken
birds. Again, some of these wing-tipped birds, in the
thick grass and weeds of a yard, have made this whistling
when it appeared to us an impossibility for them to have
used their wings.

The vocal whistle of the woodcock and the whistle of
its wings appear to us as different as the well known
“scaip” of the Wilson’s snipe is from the whistle of its
wings. Most snipe shooters have seen a wounded snipe
run on the ground, constantly springing into the air and
uttering its cry, We have never heard it questioned that
this call of alarm was vocal, and we believe that the
twitter or whistle of She woodcock is in the same way
vocal.

t.

a*-? /- ir$f.

VOL. XXXIII. — No. 2 .

No 318 Broadway, New Y ork.

(

6 ?

THE WOODCOCK.

Am Christiansburg, Ohio.

Editor American Field ‘—•In the American Field of
January 28, Mr. John Bolus asks a question and I think to
all lovers of woodcock shooting, an important one. I fully
agree with Mr. Bolus in saying that he would rather give
up the entire month of July than one week of October. I
presume the gentleman who made the proposed amendment
to our game laws was looking after the interests of our
quails during the month of October, for hundreds of them
are killed during that month by presumed woodcock
shooters.

I also read, in the same paper, Mr. Bolus’ very interesting
article on the habits of the woodcock. Brother Killbuck
must be a student of nature as well as a woodcock shooter
to produce an article so true to life ; and if sportsmen would
remember some of the ideas advanced in Mr. Bolus’ article
TEey would have better luck woodcock shooting! It fe an
evident fact that the mother bird of the woodcock family
will carry her young from one feeding ground to another,
but will she ever carry them away from danger ? Twice in
my life have I seen the mother bird fly away from a point
with a young bird between her feet. The first time I ever
saw a woodcock fly away with her young was on July 10,
1883. I was shooting woodcocks over an Irish setter puppy
and birds were plenty. I was beating an open, grassy place
when the puppy came to a stanch point some fifteen yards
from me. After admiring the point for a few minutes, I
walked up and flushed the bird. As it arose out of the grass
not over five yards from me, I noticed something was wrong
with it, and, instead of shooting at it, stopped to look and
could plainly see the little downy fellow between her feet.

I met with the same kind of a circumstance last season
only it was before the open season. My explanation of the
reason that those two birds carried their young away from
danger is that they only had the one, for a thorough search
of the ground failed to reveal another young one. In both
cases had there been more than one in the brood, the
mother bird would have done everything in her power to
entice us away from her treasure.

Now, brother woodcock shooters, have any of you met
with similar circumstances. If so, let us hear from you.

A. Guthrie.

Woodcock in New York City. — On March 10, Mr. Louis H. Schorte-
r brought into the office of the National Association of Audubon
sties a Woodcock, Philohela minor , which he had picked up in Maiden
s, New York City, that morning (March 25, 1911). The bird appeared
ie in good condition, save that it was probably weak from hunger,
as sent to the New York Zoological Park. Mr. Crandall informs me
the bird refused all food and was kept alive for about a week by stuffing
ith worms and maggots, when it died. This has been the previous
srience at the Park with these birds and is in line with one experience
I had. Although Mr. Crandall even secured earth worms for this
> and buried them in soft earth, the bird refused to eat voluntarily. —
I. Bowdish, Demarest, N. J. , x x ff't- ?> -3&

NOTES. , iW/- P 5 7 b '
y

On last Friday I had the pleasure of seeing a woodcock
carrying its young to a place of safety. It was not the first
time, but I had a clearer view than I ever had before. I
have a pointer puppy nine months old, a great-grandson of
Waddell’s Old Phil, and on that evening my wife and I
went where I knew a woodcock had nested, to determine
whether the youngster would point a game bird. Shortly
after entering a piece of low ground bordering on the Tip-
pecanoe River the puppy came to a stanch point. I called
my wife’s attention to the point, and while we were talking
about his pretty position, a woodcock flushed with a young
one between her thighs. We were not more than ten feet
from her and had an unobstructed view. The little one was
held tightly between the thighs of its mother, while she was
j al most doub led up, and kept the little one in position with
her bill and tail. Her flight was slow and labored. She
flew about thirty yards behind some brush, placed her baby
in a safe place, and returned and picked up another one
and carried it in an opposite direction. The legs and feet
of the little one were plainly visible. During this time
three or four more woodcocks flushed about the same
place. When we turned to look at the puppy he was still
standing, and I doubt not if we had game upon which to
educate him, he would be an honor to Old Phil. Hay.

Warsaw, Ind.

70

SHOOTING AX!) FISHES

OBSERVATIONS ON THE FALL FLIGHT OF
WOODCOCK.— -1889.

The best type of sportsman is invariably some-
thing of a naturalist. He cannot help asking
himself certain questions regarding the flocks of
migratory birds in spring and fall. Whence
come they, and whither are they going? What
makes them choose such and such a date each
year? And many queries of a like nature. Some
species seem to have a date, fixed and unalter-
able ; others seem guided largely by the seasons.
If the wild goose does not show up on March
17 (the holy day of the blessed St. Patrick),
the native of the fertile Province of Prince Ed-
ward’s Island feels himself an injured man. It
is only about once a generation that Anser Can-
adense , can be accused of tarrying on the way
up. He is sometimes ahead of schedule, but
very, very seldom behind. Then, again, the
grand rush south of the lesser migratory birds
(finches, buntings, etc.,) has been proved, by
investigations at the lighthouses, to take place
during the first week in September each year.
In spring they seem bound to cross the northern
boundary of the United States about the begin-
ning of April, even if they be decimated by a
late frost, as often happens. All the feathered
tribes, however, have not this peculiarity ; some
seem to be guided by caprice, and foremost in
this respect stands undoubtedly the woodcock,
j It has long been an ardent desire of mine to
get at the true inwardness of the woodcock’s
migration, but, alas, I regret to say that I seem
j as far from having this wish gratified as ever,
j It came to my knowledge that there was a flight
of woodcock along the New England coast on
the 8th of last October. In order to discover
what had induced this sudden migration, I wrote
to the chief signal officer at Washington, D.C.,
for pressure, wind, temperature, etc., on the
j night of the 7th, hoping thereby to be able to
discover why that date was chosen for the great
I migration of the year, fully ten days to a fort-
night earlier than the usual period. I confess
freely, that I expected the following conditions to
I have existed : Bright, moonlight, cloudless
■ night ; wind, north or northwest ; low tempera-
I ture and high barometer. So much for theory ;

: what do we find in practice? Chief Signal
Officer A. W. Greeley, in his prompt reply to
; my requisition for information, gives the follow-
ing details for Eastport and Portland, near which
centres some of the heaviest bags were got :

Eastport, Me., Oct. 7. — 8 p.m., Bar. 29.651,
Temp. 56°, Wind S.W., Cloudy.

Portland, Me., Oct. 7. — 8 p.m., Bar. 29.679,
Temp. 51°, Wind S.W., Light Rain.

In other words, every condition was about
diametrically opposed to those I imagined as
probably existing and enticing the cock to a
flight south. True, the moon was near her full,

1 but this was nullified by the heavens being over-
cast. It is quite evident that neither frost nor a
favorable wind tempted the birds along the
Maine coast on the night of Oct. 7, 1889. Yet
on the 8th everv cover swarmed with them, and
good scores were made from Calais to Rockland,
and I believe in Massachusetts also. Had there
been a heavy frost in the Provinces, I could well
believe that many woodcock would have been
driven to the seashore, but this was apparently
not the case.

without fear of flattery, that he knows probably
as much about this subject, as any one man is
allowed to. The result of his observations has
led him to propound the following theory :
When a flight of woodcock are met with by the
gunner, these birds are not travellers from a dis-
tance, but, on the contrary, are merely the
locally-bred birds who are gathering together
before migrating. I must own that this was en-
tirely a new idea to me. Hitherto, if I have
struck a flight, I have always asked, “Where
did they come from?” It appears I should
have questioned rather, “Where are they go-
ing?” All other birds bunch before sailing;
why not woodcock? Against this no valid ar-
gument can be advanced that I know of. Of
course, in Europe, the cock (a different bird) is
often found in large quantities in the seashore
covers of eastern England and other countries,
worn to a skeleton and nearly exhausted, evi-
dently having travelled far, but in New England
is this ever the case? I, at least, have never
seen it ; all those I have shot have been fat and
vigorous, almost proving Mr. Smith’s theory.

I once kept a woodcock in confinement (as I
reported in the sporting press at the time) , and
proved that a few hours’ abstinence reduced the
bird to a skeleton ; and, as no bird can fly and
eat, the fact that woodcock are usually in good
condition proves, to me at least, that they have
been stationary.

Another subject we discussed at some length
was, the route taken by the Province birds going
south. Those bred in New Brunswick probably
pass along the Maine coast, but hardly those
hatched in Nova Scotia. The beautiful vale of
Annapolis, N.S., is as famous for its woodcock
shooting as for its apple crop, and the birds are
there shot far later in the season than in New
Brunswick. They migrate from Nov. 1 to 10,
as a rule. The fact that the best shooting is
over in Maine by Oct. 25, seems to prove that
the Nova Scotia birds lay a straight course from
Yarmouth for Cape Cod, and do not visit Maine
in the fall.

If any other gunner with naturalistic leanings
wishes to add to my notes on this subject, the
platform is at his service, and there are lots of
his brother sportsmen, (although sitting in the
back row) , who would rejoice to see such a one
make a “hit.” c. A. b.

All over the interior of New Brunswick wood-
ock nest and rear their young. In fact, during
[uly (if the law was off’), very heavy bags could
>e made, but, after moulting, they disappear,
md are never seen in large numbers inland again
hat year. Generally a few remain nearly up to
November, in fact until frozen out, but the man
who should pick up half a dozen to his own
? un, inland, after Oct. 25, will have done won-

le A few days since, I enjoyed the pleasure o( a
long chat on this (to me) most interesting sub-
ject with Mr. Everett Smith of Portland, Me.
This' gentleman is a naturalist, whose reputation
)V accurate observations of bird hie and habits
is spread considerably beyond Ins native city,
d he is probably well known to many readers
Shooting and Fishing. Like myself, Mi .
,-nith has been trying to unravel the mysteiious
ohits of P. Minor, and I think I may say,

7/

HA-BITS OF THE WOODCOCK.

Dansville, N. Y., March 1, 1875.

3i< 7 ‘ 7i

Editor Forest and Stream:— |

The woodcock 'jiiat have been in the Southern States since the latter i
part of November will be with us again by tlie full moon of this month. I
Ttiey travel as far north as Canada, and through every State in our
Union, around the great lakes, and as far northwest as Fort Union, on
the Missouri Kiver. In the month of September the shooting is splendid
in the northern part of Dakota, and along the Mississippi River north of
Dubuque. At Red Lake they are also in abundance. They commence
traveling south about the first of October, and by full moon they are in
this vicinity. At all the lakes they can be found, and the shooting is
perfection, especially in Minnesota, ducks, geese, swan and crane being
very plentiful. A few sportsmen travel in steamboats up and down the
Mississippi River, making it a business shooting woodcock, ruffed and
pinnated grouse; geese and ducks for the St. Louis and Chicago mar-
kets. About the first of April they build their nest in this sectio n
which is roughly formed under some fallen tree or dead bushes, or by
the side of a decayed stump, and lay from three to five eggs nearly as
large as a pigeon’s. They are of an olive color, with light, pale brown
spots. They generally hatch two broods, and if not disturbed will sit in
the same nest the second time. The first brood is taken care of by the
cock bird, and after the second is fully grown they take both broods to
the best feeding grounds . They should be left alone until Septembei.
July shooting should be abolished in every Northern State, because the
bird cannot fly as a game bird should fly until he has moulted and re-
ceived his Autumnal colors. In 1810 I bagged sixty-five woodcock in
two days' shooting in the month of October; the birds were fat, many of
them weighing eight ounces. It is impossible to do this in Summer.
Northward of Dakota their stay is short, but the snipe passes far be-
yond, being lighter and stronger on the wing. As soon as they com-
mence migrating they make short nocturnal flights from covert to covert,
resting in the day time. This valley has caution signs for miles along
the roads, and the law will be enforced if any one is detected shooting
woodcock during the Summer months. Woodcock, when migrating,
feed at dusk, and are ready for their journey at daylight, I have flushed
them in November in the woods, and have seen them tower far above
the forest trees, flying in a circle for ten or fifteen minutes, and then
alight near the spot where they had been flushed. I have seen my dog
rise from his charge when told to hie on, and after walking a few steps
point the second time on the first bird. At daylight, in the Spring, their
flights are more rapid and longer. They generally travel in pairs, and
when on the move can be found in any swampy ground inclined to be
sandy especially in second growth sprouts, or in low lying thickets near
open ground, but never in the forest. Black alder, birch and willows
are their favorite resorts, and food abounds more plentifully where there
is alow, rich, black soil and bogs, but not grassy. During the heat of
the day the birds lie in the thickets and close woods. At twilight I have
seen them on the wing near open swamps, or along the open banks of
rivers and when seen at that season on moonlight nights they feed all
night long, and at daybreak take a long flight to some shady haunt.
They only"act in this manner when non migrating. They will return to
the covert in which they were hatched, if not driven out before the
moultin'* season; but as the law stands to-day I think very few return.
Nearly all of the young are but three-fourths grown by July, and the
old ones are taken away from the second brood that arc but half fledged.
If left alone for two weeks longer they could take care of themselves.

Woodcock, at times, are sluggish and hard to rise, and when flushed
they will only fly ten or fifteen feet and drop again suddenly, and that,
too, in front of the dog. I generally found that when this was the case
the bird was either very fat, or fatigued by a long journey, and if so,
was very thin and pin feathered. The woodcock, on alighting, runs oft-
entimes as the quail, before squatting. I have seen them in October
run round and round the dog, then hide under a leaf . Their tails are erect
and spread when running in this manner. About the full moon in Au-
gust they disappear. A single bird is only found here and there until
the first of September, when they again take up their former grounds .
They very soon get in fine order and give sport which is excellent, hut
Sifter a few heavy frosts and the ground becomes slightly frozgn, they
canijot, bore, tlw ipsects p»pp*#r, *»4 they leave for thP South, and do

FOREST AND STREAM.

SZjcni<j } Us Pari

not appear among us until they get ready to build and sit; then they
visit our lakes and swamps again. The largest and fattest birds that I
have ever bagged have been in this locality, and I have hunted them
for forty years. I bagged my first brace in Pennsylvania, in 1835. In
the Autumn of ’7i I weighed twelve birds, and they turned the scale at
six and a half pounds. I shot several this season that weighed nine
ounces fully, and my nephew shot one that weighed ten ounces.
The feeding grounds here are small, but are superior for woodcock and
snipe. My nephew also shot a grouse that weighed forty-eight ounces,
which is of course a very rare specimen, their usual weight being from
twenty to thirty-five ounces. Woodcock generally weigh from five and
one-half to seven ounces, and the English bird from nine to sixteen
ounces. I had one sent to me from England that weighed one pound
one ounce. I had it set up, and have it in my collection. The plumage
of the two birds is very different. Ours is more delicate in flavor and
juiciness. The rich and loamy soil in this locality causes the Autumn
birds to be so fine and fat. They are not confined to suction, for under
the leaves and turf and in the thickets and open bogs 'they find many
worms and insects.

When boring, they make a dull, heavy sound, until they grasp their
prize. Ra : sing their bill into the air they seem to suck the worm stead-
ily, when, with a quick motion of the head, it disappears, and the work
is commenced for another morsel. They bore five or ten holes very rap
idly and then rest for a few minutes. Their bill being filled with many
nerves makes it very sensitive, so that no worm can escape, if within
two inches of the surface. They are greedy, unsocial and solitary.
From the time the first egg is laid until the brood is hatched, is gener-
ally four weeks. I have seen the male bird at this time rise almost in a
line, probably three hundred feet, then commence circling, making a
very singular note, something like the snipe, but much louder and
deeper, then rapidly descending to the place whence he started he com-
mences giving an entirely different note, sounding like quack, quack,
and is answered by the female instantly.

The ordinary number of the young brood is four birds. I have seen
five, but seldom. When the moulting season commences the woodcock
separate, and do not come together again until they get ready to migrate.

I have seen the male bird with the first brood tumble and flutter along
the ground and over the dead leaves for a short distance, and then take
wing, fly in a circle, and return to the hen, and in a few moments utter a
few clucks, and the young would come out of their hiding places and be
under his protection again. lie would squat and allow me to pass with-
in a few feet of him. Wherever there is good boriug a side hill is
his choice for home. If the weather has been dry, you will always find
them in briar patches, or deep thickets, where the ground never loses
moisture; and on the contrary you will find them on the hills or elevated
ground^, especially if there is a certain degree of moisture. Aud when
the weather gets cool you will find them among the chestnuts aud birch
clearings, receiving the warmth of the November sun. And as the sea-
son approaches its end you will find them in the more sheltered swamps,

| w here the worms and insects are protected. The cedar swamps they
delight in, and 1 have shot many of them in November and in the early
part of December. But they are very uncertain in their movements,
hein* governed by the soil and weather. In the southern part of Dela-
w are" they collect in large numbers, for the marshes and cripples is their
home Last season birds were very scarce in the Eastern and Midale
States. Summer shooting kills off all the old birds and spoils the Au-

This game bird is harrassed more than any other; after being hunted
I all summer aud Autumn, when he returns south they are not content
! with hunting during the day, but at night take the negro and torch, and
' whilst he is feeding “shoot him on the spot,” and call that sport. The
■ severe, many snows, but light; but if the
,oo wet, there will be plenty of game next
John DeBanes.

Late Flight of Woodcock on Long Island, N. Y. — On December 5,
1908, while hunting near Flanders, Suffolk Co., I flushed a Woodcock
( Philohela minor). On December 8, after a storm and heavy rain, eleven
were shot in a small swamp at Lawrence, Nassau Co., close to the New
York City line. The same day one was seen in a little strip of woods about
one mile from this swamp.

In 30 years on Long Island, I have never seen other than stragglers
after about November 20th and do not recall ever before seeing one in
December. — Harold Herrick, New York City.

Auk 26, Jan -190© 77

72

A Fern-eating Woodcock. — One of the most singular departures of
birds from their ordinary food-habits that I have ever observed is the fol-
lowing : In examining the digestive organs of more than one hundred
Woodcocks, I think I have never found in them anything but the common
earth-worm, either entire or in various stages of digestion, excepting in
one or two instances, a leech ( Hirudo medicinalis).

The Woodcock in question was brought to me to be mounted by Mr.
W. C. Alvord, of Washington, D. C., who shot it while Woodcock shoot-
ing at Martha’s Vineyard. This bird was one of several killed on the 17th
of October, 1885. When skinning it my attention was called to its very
singularly distended crop. Upon making a cut into the membrane with
a pair of scissors, out rolled, or rather jumped, the contents, which being
released from confinement increased to three times its former size. At
the same moment I was astonished to observe the character of the con-
tents, which proved to be leaves of the common fern (Pteris aquilina),
rolled up in so curious a manner, and in such quantity, as to plainly in-
dicate that it was the result of a deliberate meal, and not an accident.

The crop was so full as to be incapable of holding any additional
material. No other substance was mixed with the leaves, the entire wad
or ball being free from dirt of any character. Every leaflet of the fronds was
intact, and after being soaked in warm water and spread out side by side
they covered a space twelve inches square. The stomach and intestines
appeared to contain parts of partly digested leaves, but nothing else,
though this was not carefully determined.

A ‘Fern-eating Woodcock’ is a novelty in my experience. Drs. Mer-
riam and Fisher have desired me to send this record for publication to
‘The Auk.’ This is one of the most singular instances noted, not ex-
cepting even the record of the presence of an entire Song Sparrow in the
crop of a Chuck-wills-widow.

It may be mentioned that the locality where this Woodcock was shot
was an open marsh, with bushes here and there, while springs and small
streams afforded in abundance the usual food of this very fastidious bird.
The specimen was in fine condition — a plump and fat old female. —

Frederic S. Webster, n 1 '

Light on the woodcock and worm question : According to
the last Smithsonian report the Hupa Indians, in Hum-
boldt county, California, relish angleworms as a delicacy.
In the autumn, when the ground has been well soaked by
the rains, the Yuki housekeeper takes her “woman stick,”
a pole 6ft. long and l-.Un. thick, sharpened and fire-hard-
! ened at the end; and thrusting this into the ground about
a foot in depth, twists it around in every direction, so
agitating the earth that the worms come to the surface
in large numbers for a radius of two or three feet, and
are scooped up for soup. “Frequently,” says the report,
“the worms are brought to the surface by the Indians
,1 dancing over the ground to make the game uncomfort-
able below.” The Indians of Round Valley punch a pole
as far as possible into the damp earth, work it back and
forward, and by pressure drive out the worms, which
they eat raw or make into soup. Now, may it not be
true that when the woodcock bores for worms it pro-
cures them in three ways, by seizing any which it may
come upon directly in boring, by agitating the earth by
successive borings, thus driving the prey to the surface,
and further by the dancing, stamping or beating with

the wings described by observers? £ J * ■T *

fa /// * * A- Wl

Mtrt **■*£/. *?

THE AUK:

A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF

ORNITHOLOGY.

April, 1903. No. 2

THE DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF BOB-WHITE.

BY JOHN N. CLARK . 1

To THE man who keeps his eyes and ears open, there are new
sources of entertainment and instruction bursting upon his vision
at every turn. I hey often come as surprises — for Nature ever
prolific in resource, offers a new program at every interview.
Such were the thoughts that suggested themselves as I took the
pen to recount a little episode that afforded much entertainment
for me the past summer.

I frequently observed during later June and early July a stately
Bob-white stationed on a post near at hand where at early morn
and fading day he called out with great energy his weather prog-
nostications with little favor to the haymakers, as if he were a
trusted employee of the Weather Bureau.

By the roadside in that immediate vicinity grow numerous
patches of what I call scrub. There are hazel scrub, wild rose
scrub, and blueberry and dwarf willow scrubs — annually mowed
Mowing does not destroy or discourage them, but puts them in the
form so popular in Japan when practiced upon trees kept in plant
form by trimming and training. These scrubs, cut to stubs from
six to ten inches, renew their annual leaf and vigor and afford nice

1 [Ihis article has a sad interest, owing to the death of the author since the
manuscript was received for publication. See ‘ Notes and News ’ in the pres
ent number of ‘ The Auk Edd.] P

tSU^e

^ftrv Cc tmLv mv idu> trtnd/t'ircTc
’cfpiheuvA, . *W. U. ^*voaA.

ft ■ *' ( ‘- J ^-

Cp.'t-O?. XV. Vut^.MV- f - 2 L

IVS8 The Woodcock and the Won,, By E. B. and William Brewster.
bL p. » 4 -Mr. Brewster’s „,1=1« is » i»p.r^«tnb^.,o»«, «w ^

knowledge of the Woodcock’s habits. PO^ & Stream. YOl. ; ~“7

98. Woodcock carrying their Toting. Ibid., XIV, p. 468. Two in-
teresting communications, one anonymous [z. e. H. W. Henshaw], the

Por. & Sfcrsaaa

other by F. C. Fowler.

407. Nesting habits.— Woodcock and Black Duck. By. J. N. Clark.
Ibid., p. 144..— Young Woodcock able to fly May 4, and young Black
Ducks seen May 5, at Old Saybrook, Conn. Q, ;*/ Q*., y^, VXI

95. Woodcock carrying their Toting. By B., with lengthy editorial
comment. Ibid.. XIV, p. 368. g» or , & &tr©aiU

152. Death of the Woodcock Dick. By F. P. Magoun. Ibid.. XV, p.

286. Further history of the captive specimen previously recorded, ( 1 . c.

XV, p. 27; see above No. 142). POT. & Stre&JR

1804. The Whistle of the Woodcock. By CrharlesI Hrinkle'l „ nr.
on-us. Ibid., Sept. p. H3 . F 0r> *&&£££ ^ ""

32 . Woodcock killed by Telegraph Wires. By J. M. W[liipple].

V p. 94. _ Several instances cited ; also reference to Grouse flying into
one walls, wood-piles, and against houses. Fa^J, Sol, Si F'ano, JOOr,

- * * Strewn, Vqj 8i

/f&e . .

17S7. fFhy.s 0/ 2/zr Woodcock. Editorial Thid is .

'192! ^Woltlclanlt f£edinS habUS aiUl n ° tCS ' 7 U ° ^ P - ' I ~ Inkr ’ E

££■ ’ J™ ££1 pp- 407- 4 of^ "For^mreaS; vo^s* A ‘ Turtle ’

Editorial, Ibid., XV, p. 27.— Account ota

142. A Captive Woodcock

caged specimen kept for some weiTn ^^n^d “earth
worms. Wqy* Sf StreaiB

x 794 * The Woodcock's WhisfJp Ru w;ir

p. 83. For, & Stream XTcI William Brewster and W

L. r ‘ ^ - earn, Vo], 38 0 ^ 7 . 22 .

86 .,. [ fPWe,-] Bird Notes. Ibid n If_-n

f-ent contributors, one recording a Woodcock [ 7 cf'' T™ f ‘'° m dif '
Feb. 22, 1884. For * slrewn. f^ T j Glenv "le. C

Habits of the Woodcock. By F. L. Harvey. Ibid., XVI pp
; -sporting its young between its feet. Affler. N «tar*£’

4 Z k, L^ Stle - ** R ° bert T ’ Morris.
l8oo 7V ,> , ' & Stream, V0| a 3g

8 T,lJf Woodcock's Whistle. By H B <s ,

p. 1.23. Wqt, Vrtf'aa and K '

KoSy. The Woodcock’s Song. By J. H. D. Ibid. , Apr. 30, p. 268

IfStiiam, XXIV

488.
738

I 79 I -
r 5 > p. 65.

Sept. 5,

Ibid. .

-°n n. , on

Ibid., Aug - .

W. Ibid. .

For, & stream

IS

Ibid.,

The Woodcock’s Whistle. By Marstrand. Ibid. — Scolopax rus-

For, & Stream. Vol, 33 &<d . n. /..ays.

For, & Stream,

1821. Woodcock in Town. By S. E., Duplex, and II. J. G.

Nov. 7, P . 302 ; Nov. x 4 . P- 3 * 4 - W /0i ‘ 38

148. Another Captive [ Wood] Cock. Bj A. E. GodefFroy. Ibid., XV,

p- 148. For, & Stream

l8l2.
ticola.

1879. Notes on the Woodcock. By T. M. Aldrich . Ibid., March 6 D.

123. For, ^Stream, voU 34

1906. The Woodcock’s Son^. By £>■ 7 «, & Str eam. YoU 34 tru^, if>- 2Z7.

x 7 2 7 - The Woodcock Supply. By N. A. Plummer, Notliks, A. B. C.

Alfred A. Fraser, Whitt, Sandpiper, H. B. N., C. B„ et al. Ibid . * p! ii-

345 ; Nov. 29, p. 367; Dec. 13, p. 411 ; Dec. 27, p. 458. WoV\ &Btream« Yd* 31
1850. The Ways of the Woodcock. By T. M. Aldrich r/, w

7^ s J 6g - 7f x n ar j^ cIe , of g . reat interest - ^cr, & stream. VoU W!V- 8 'a. •

rC-Sf. 1931. Woodcock tn a Tree. By W H F Ti w r 1

Ib!d M [ NcStin S in Northern Mississippi.] By N. B. Nesbiu°' P ' ^

Ibid., March 29, p. 305. American Field, XXI Nesbltt -

S98 A Bit of a Sermon. By Onondaga. Ibid., June 10 n. 402 _

Breed, "g of Woodcock in New York in July, etc. 1 P ? ' ' , A. XXII

s> 3Q 1781. The Woodcock’s Whistle. By H B N Th'd T 1 a

73 t. woodcock and Turtle. Editorial. Ibid p £ _ " h ’ 7 P ’ SI °' &Str6am ‘

caught by the latter. Q, & Q* VoijVIIJ P ” 3 ’ ~ T former

/ia.SS. 1 79 o. TViufes Woodcock. By Canonicus n.W

„ ■> nonicus ' ibid., PP . 44-45 . For, & Stream.

1723- of the Woodcock Flight. By E. H. Lathrop. Ibid. p.

286.— See also Nos. 1725 and 1727. M, & Stream. YOU 81 . yUv. I .

1367. Philo. By Charles A. Bramble. Ibid., No. 11, Oct. 6, p. 204.

Interesting account of a Woodcock in captivity. For, & Stream. Yol X’Y’Y
I 75 2 > Woodcock Breedi?ur in ATn ^ / /> r' / •

l Wilmington , (N - c -) star.- For, altream. VrtT aa," ^LcU l . .

> 377 - A Queer Dick of a Woodcock. By Nor’east. Ibid., No. 21, ' ’ ^

ec. 15, p. 403.— Interesting account of a Captive Woodcock

For. 3t Stream, Yol. XXIX ”

1905. He Does Eap Worms. By Sevmour o„ ,

Phi loh ela minor. FOT, & Stream. VoL ol Santvoord. Ibid.

270. “ That Woodcock” [-with the stick through its breast ]. By H. .

Merrill. Ibid., VI, p. 3, cut.

1793 - [ The Woodcock and the worm.] Editorial. Ibid., Aug. i2>

P . Si. For, & Stream. Yoi : 33

^ u f: "f "’ M - »> j- /»«...* . ,

VOi * 38 I 79 °. I he Woodcocks Whistle. By H. B. N Thid A „

■ VOl, 3S 1 7&5' A Study of 'wZJik. For > Stream. •

1725. The Woodcock Flight. By E. H. Lathrop. Ibid ., p. 326. ffiOf, & Stream.

1/trC. 3!. VUs. /S.

156. Another Captive Woodcock. By H. R. Ibid., XV, p. 426. — A

specimen

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/life

LL At 5.20 a. Wilson* s Snipe got Lip from the marshy ground near the
roost, emitting its "scape", rose to a great height, darting about
as in the Spring flights, and bleated once . The bleat was of
shorter duration than in the Spring, but otherwise the same. The
rest of the while it uttered only the " scape " . Disappeared in a
little while in the direction of Rock Meadow. Thoreau says (Excur-
sions" ,p, 50 ) : "The late walker or sailor , in October evenings, may
hear the murmuring s of the snipe circling over the meadows, the most
spirit-like sound in nature". After reading this I went to the
Fresh Pond marshes Oct. 12 on purpose to hear the Snipe, if possi-
ble. At about 5.20 a Snipe rose from near Alewife Brook, "utter-
ing its "scape" as it rose, and joined two others high up in the
air, but I heard no bleating. But from the way they flew about it
seemed as if they ought to bleat. You may well believe that I was
pleased to confirm Thoreau last night when a Snipe was the last
riling in my mind, I am going to F. Pond again to-night to see what
I can hear ( as an Irishman would say). Can't you hear the Snipe
bleat at Umbagog? Or is it too far North & cold? And can't you
induce a Woodcock or two to sing? I can't help believing that they
do-more or less, just as the Partridge drums and other birds sing

0 )

in the autumn.

1892.

Gallinago delicate

Aug. 14.

Sept . 5
(No. 2)

Sept.

Mass .

Concord . - While sailing a little below Davis's Hill I was posi-
tively electrified by hearing, suddenly, the sca_ip_e of a
Wilson's Snipe thrice repeated. The next instant I saw the bird
flying across the river about fifteen feet above the water. It
alighted on the west bank among tall grass. I could see nothing
moving on the meadow to the eastward whence it came but possibly
it had been frightened by my sails or it may have been merely
changing its feeding grounds. The time was about half-an-hour
before sunset. If this bird was a migrant it furnishes the
earliest date of autumn arrival which I have ever obtained.

Concord.- Two parties of sportsmen with their dogs were beating
the meadows in the afternoon and fired a dozen or more shots.

On my way up river at evening I passed near one q,f these parties
and on questioning them was informed that they had started four
Wilson's Snipe and had shot one of these birds and a Marsh Hawk.

Concord.- The first sound that I heard was the whistling of
Duck's wings. Then suddenly, from directly overhead and with
startling clearness, came the weird humming of a Snipe, and afte
an interval of a few seconds, during which I had an oj/portunity
to convince myself that I was really awake, the bird drummed
again very near me and then flew about low down on the meadow
marking its course by a succession of scaipes . The "drumming"
was precisely like that produced by this bird in spring. I have

Wilson' s
Snipe.

Wilson' s
Snipe
on the
meadows.

Snipe
drums dr

Gallinago delicata

1892. Mass .

Sept. 7 Concord . - never heard it in autumn before and Know of only one
instance (communicated to me by Faxon who heard a Snipe drum in
the early evening last September on Roch Meadow) when it has

Snipe

drums.

been noted by others.

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Gal 1 lxiaKQ del icata .

Ball's Hill, Concord, Mass.

1897. During the first ten days of April the Great Meadows were,

April. as usual, flooded but, after the 10th, continued warm, dry

weather caused the water to fall steadily until by the 21st
the river was in most places well within its banks. Ho doubt
there had been Snipe on the brook meadows of Concord long be-
fore this but the first bird that I noted was one that drummed
a few times near Ball's Hill on the evening of the 22nd. Dur-
ing the remainder of the month I heard them every evening as
well as in the early morning whenever I happened to awake at
the right time. In the evening they began drumming about 15
or 20 minutes after sunset, keeping it up until the light had
faded out in the west (I did not once hear one after it had
become fairly dark); in the morning I heard them from 4.15 to
4.30 o'clock. They were most numerous on the evenings of the
27th and 28th when the meadows seemed to be fairly alive with
them, three or four being usually engaged in drumming ’at one
time while others wefe cackling or "scaiping". As a rule the
cackle was seldom heard until nearly the close of the drumming
period when, for ten of fifteen minutes, it would come from
every part of the meadows. In quality it was very like the
cut -cut ta note of Rallus vir«inianus and anyone hearing it for
the first time would be nearly sure to conclude that it was
the voice of some species of Rail. It varies somewhat in tone

2

Gal 1 inafto del ioata .
Ball's Hill, Concord, Mass.

1897.

and form and greatly duration and rapidity of utterance.

April. Ordinarily the syllable hen is repeated about 15 or 20 times
at the rate of about three heps to the second but sometimes
they are continued without the slightest pause for several
minutes. Again they are sometimes given much more slowly at
the rate of about three to each two seconds. So far as I have
observed, however, the rate never varies during any one cackling
period. The tone is usually rather dry and harsh but occa-

Cl

sionally it is soft and almost liquid -hub rather than a hen

I

!

sound. The cachle is very penetrating in quality for it may
be easily heard half-a-inile away when there is no wind.

The drumming carries even further under favorable condi-
tions-to quite three quarters of a mile when the air is still.
It varies considerably in tone and fulness with different
birds and to some extent with the same bird.

On the 27th I heard a Snipe drum several times at about
9 A.M. the shy being overcast but not densely cloudy at the
time. On the morning of the 29th, a bird drummed almost con-
tinuously over the meadow opposite Birch Island from j3 to. 8.
o 1 clock although the weather was clear and the sun, after 7
o'clock, very warm. At first there was no wind but a fresh
breeze from the N. sprang up about 7.45. Although we (Mr. Fax-
on was with me ) stood for a long time on the shore at Birch

n

3

Ball’s
1S97 .
April .

Apr . 23

Apr . 28

Gal 1 inago delicata .

Hill, Concord, Mass.

Island using our glasses freely we did not once get our eyes
on the bird and unfortunately we had no means of crossing the
river. At times, however, the Snipe must have come within
200 yards or less judging by the sound of his wings while
drumming. He cackled every now and then. We heard him first
from just behind Ball's Hill a distance of fully half a mile.
He stopped drumming at 8 A.M. About half -an -hour before sun-
set he was at it again keeping it up until dark.

Shortly after sunset a Snipe began drumming on the mead-
ows opposite Benson's landing keeping it up at intervals for
half-an-hour or more. Twice this same and another bird gave
the kep -kep -ke p -ke p -ke v call or cackle very distinctly and
apparently not over 100 yards from where I was standing but
on the other side of the river.

After tea we (W. Faxon and I ) took the ^d wooden boat
and rowed up to the Beaver Dam Rapid. The meadows were sim-
ply alive with Snipe and their drumming and cackling for an

hour or more was almost incessant.

Gallinago aelicata

! Concord,
1898.

: Oct. 10.

;

i

Mass.

The grass on the meadows along the river has been cut
cwt over a space of about an acre near the head of Beaver Dam
Rapid and in this little opening the sportsmen find all their
Snipe. A man -who was beating the place this morning told me
that he and two companions bagged seventeen Snipe there on
September 17th. He said there were many more that escaped.
They would rise high and fly all over the meadows but they
always returned sooner or later and alighted again in the
opening .

Birds within Ten Miles of Point
de Monts, Oan, Qom.e&u & Merri er;

87* Gallinago wilsoni. Snipe. — A rather rare migrant. — Earliest
killed May 9, 1882.

Bull. N, O.O, 7 , Oct, 1882 , P .238

Records f rom Toronto. B.B.T. Seton.

American Snipe. Gallinago wilsoni. — A white specimen
of this well-known bird was shot in Toronto marsh on the 3d of
May, 1884, by Mr. H. Townson, in whose possession the bird
now is. It was killed in company with two normal individuals
of the same species. It is pure white, with the ordinary mark-
ings indicated in pale, creamy buff, the only dark shades being a
few dusky touches on the scapulars, flanks, and subterminal tail-
band. The legs and bill are yellowish flesh-color.

Atlk, 2, Oot. , 1885. p.336

Last Dates Migratory Birds ob serve dW

B. D . Wintle, Palll886, Montreal, Can.

iPc/t- / £7 Wilson’s Snipe.

O.&O. XI. Mar. 1880. p. VV

Summer Birds of Bras D’Or Region
Cape Breton Id,, N.S. J. Dwight, Jr.

5. Gallinago delicata.

-a.uk, 4, Jan., 1887. p. 16

Birds of Magdalen Islands.

Dr. L.B. Bishop.

19. Gallinago delicata. Wilson’s Snipe.— Abundant. Breeds plenti-
fully on all the islands. The young were able to fly by the latter part of
June.

Auk, VI. April. 1389. p. 146

'

Dwight, Summer Birds of
Prince Bdward Island.

Gallinago delicata. Wilson’s Snipe. — This species breeds, sparingly
I fancy, at suitable places on the island. I saw a young bird in first
plumage among Prof. Earle’s birds and talked with several men who had
found nests. The tussocks in boggy places along brooks seem to be the
usual site — in one case a nest was found in a bunch of iris.

Auk X, Jan, 1893, p. S'

Auk, XIII, Oct. ,1896, p

Wilson’s Snipe in Nova Scotia in Winter. — During the months ot
January and February, 1896, I frequently flushed a pair of Wilson’s Snipe
( Gallinago delicata ) from a small fresh-water swamp near this town,
known as Willow Hollow. This swamp is watered by many springs,
situated in a well sheltered place, and remains open all winter.

Is not this pretty far north for these birds to winter? The winter was
severe with much snow. — Harold F. Tufts, IVoIfville, Nova Scotia.

97

Auk, XV, April, 1808, p

/tVvw<LL/&. oJ*-£**- _ CX^e^vvcJt~^£jy~>

C— 0 A^'V~«*- ’ <S CL-<S&1m~~

Wilson’s Snipe (Gallinago delicata). — A partial albino was shot
about October n, 1894, at Canning, King’s County.

Nswf oundland Notes. A Trip up the
Humber Biver, Aug. 10 - Sept, 24,1899.

13. Gallinago delicata. Wilson’s Snipe. — One seen August 20.

Louis H. Porter, New York City.
Auk, XVII. Jan. . 1900, p . 7 /.

Birds of N.B. coast of Ba/brador
by Henry B. Bigelow.

41. Gallinago delicata. Wilson’s Snipe.— Three or four near Cape
St. Francis.

Auk, XIX, Jan., 1902, p.28.

Birds of Toronto, Ontario.

By James H. Fleming.

Pt.I, Water Birds.

Auk, XXIII, Oct., 1906, p.448.

81. Gallinago delicata. Wilson’s Snipe. — Regular migrant; fairly
common in May, returning September 11 to October 27; earliest record,
March 28, 1897; latest, November 24, 1894.

• "jpotia Mr R. W. Tufts of

Wilson’s Snipe Wintering m * Snipe (Galindo
Wolfville, Kings County, Nova c 1915 . He said this bird

deZicota) which he discovered in a sheltered spring swamp

=?--->■ r - - ST “JZ1SETS

thp severest winter weather. The bird was

.to- Jobs E. M, 1—-

JbJk joou /. yty /f/rr/c 3 69

Early Flight of Wilson’s Snipe in Massachusetts. — On the after-
noon of August 27, 1916, 1 saw at least 25 Wilson’s Snipe, Gallinago delicata,
along the Ipswich River in Topsfield, Mass. Mr. F. W. Killam reported
about “ three dozen ” there the next day. These snipe were very wild
and restless, continually flighting about the meadows in small flocks.
A flight of snipe was reported at other points in Mass, the same week.
So far as I can find out this is the earliest autumn record for any consider-
able number of this species in Mass.— J. C. Phillips, Wenham, Mass.

X XX \U- Q • f 9 £ & '

/ R ya Beach, N..H. 186 7. J

f U V V ij

/u~«. //f luuiir

y Ujx£j~cn^~ , _ C-6LA4 , if Rye Beach, N.HJ808.

, ' ' ^ V
J 'A'CCc^&^Q ^ & Rye Beach, N, BL 180Q

,, Rye lieach, N.H., 1870.

iU-tA* e-%**. {f/~ £■*(' l/'^rwl f-L^ %~(J. %7 tA-V-y

/ “ /l ^ r

VAjUu^x^o <*rH* <r^j ._ JooCy x% , oU^f, ^ ' Ry® Beach, N. H. 1872,

r

/ + 4 *%r

tAA. t>_t

/ j Rye Beach, N.H. 1872

CA Ip- \ y\^j ^CaaJ

1 ^lH? ^ ^ CLA^sh-^j J

JA-*

^-fi

al

Fl^ M*~> ..*-H. Tru^f^f

3. Gallinago wilsoni. Wilson’s Snipe. - Obtained August 29, at
Nantucket. ( 1 &o»~v*». A-j /

Ball, 2*. 0,9. 4> Jan * 48791 P 63 •

Afass* {near Camb ridge').

J888

^ 9a/U*U.t*

Limicolae in Bristol County.

H. F. Dexter, Dartmouth, Mass.

Wilson's Snipe, Gallinago media wilsoni.
Noticed only in migrations, April and in au-
tumn. One flushed from a salt marsh Nov.
30th, 1883 is the latest date I have heard of
their being seen.

O.& O. XII. Sept. 1887 p.M8

Birds of Bristol County , Mass.
F.W. Andros.

I Gallinago delicata (Ord.), Wilson’s Snipe.
! Migrant, not common.

O.&O. XII. Sept. 1887 P-^ 8

On March 8th, while duck ' shooting at
>. quantum (7 miles from Boston) 1 had the
good fortune to secure a Wilson’s Snipe On
severing it I found it to beT^T^ie^, and
nothing in the crop except a very little green-
ish sub sta nce resembling e el g rass. It flew
within five yards of me and lit in a snow bank,
where I easily procured it with dust shot.

■S. K. Patten.

O.&O, XV. Mar. 1890 p

too

Notes from Belohertown, Mass,

J . W , J aokson

Dec. 20, Wilson Snipe shot near mill-
pond.

O.&O.V 0 I.I 8 , Mar. 1803 p .46

Nantucket Notes Nantucket' VlP ’a 1805, p - 3 / 0 .

• W!W. Snipe C«S5T«£S*Sr *'

«oou o, Peep, tl , , h J of f " d '" S *

pjCco^e. A 1 - ht&c/^£py, h.<u^ZZLt.6’*X~ _ />r «. 5 S’.

Shore Birds of Gape Cod.

John C. Oahoon.

Wilson's Snipe, Gallinac/o delicata (Ord.)
A common spring and autumn migrant. It
'arrives in the spring early in April, and all do
not pass before the middle of May. In autumn
it reaches the Cape about the second week in
August, but is not in full force until the middle
or last week of September. On the Cape it is
found on fresh marshes and springy bottoms at
the edges of salt marshes. The best locality
that I know of is a soft, muddy marsh near
Harwich called the “ Grassy Pond.” It is very
springy and miry, and is overflowed with water
in the winter and spring, which dries away
during the summer, leaving large pools of
water in some places. It is crossed by several
wide ditches and is covered by patches of grass,
rushes, and lily pads. It is exceedingly hard,
tiresome work traveling about on the marsh,
and although in some parts there is a firm bot-
tom, in most parts it is very miry, and one will
sink to his hips at every step. On several oc-
casions I have gone down into the mud up to
my arms. I have had some line sport with
duck, teal, rail birds and snipe, and have
started as many as forty of the latter in a few r
hours tramp over this marsh on a September
morn. Of late years they have not been as
plentiful in this and other localities on Cape
Cod. Most of them leave by the last of Octo-
ber, but a few remain until the soil freezes.

0,&O, XlU.Aug. 1888 p. IQI

Gallinago delicata. A pair spent the past severe winter along a small
brook in the Arnold Arboretum. Tamaica Plain. Mass.

^7 .

/<=>/

IN THE NORTH.

Wellsville, N. T.

Editor American Field : — Tuesday, January 24, Rev. E.
H. Edson of our village called at my office and told me of a
strange bird with long legs and a long bill that his children
had seen frequently of late at the mouth of a spring near
his residence. I became interested at once and suspected a
snipe of some kind had been left over from the Fall flight.
Immediately I called my old pointer. Shot, which was in
my office, and went to the residence of Mr. Edson. Sure
enough, just below where the spring of water made out
from the bank we found the bird standing in the water. I
sent the dog down there and he made a point that would de-
light the heart of any sportsman. The bird was flushed,
and flew away, perhaps forty-five yards, when it alighted
again in the stream of shallow water coming from the
spring. The old dog moved on and made another point
which he held for a long time until I again flushed the
bird. This time when the bird went up he gave his “scaipe”
note, so common with Scolopax wilsoni, and there could be
no question but that we had found a Wilson’s snipe. I
never heard of a Wilson snipe being with us this time of
year. For more than six weeks the ground has been frozen
a foot in depth, and the ice upon the river is upward of
fourteen inches in thickness. The ground was covered with
snow several inches deep and had been for weeks. How-
ever, at this place there is an open stream of water fifteen
or twenty rods in length coming from the spring which
never freezes, and cresses and green grass are now growing
therein.

This place is in the corporate limits of our village and
within forty rods of our Main street. The spring is used
for domestic purposes and water is taken from it half a
dozen times or more every day. Upon inquiry I ascertained
that the little children of Mr. Edson had frequently seen the
bird of late when playing near the spring, t This snipe was
in full plumage, apparently fat, and a large one, and I could
discover no injury about it. I shall keep watch of this bird
and am anxious to ascertain if it will stay with us until
Spring.

Have any of the readers of the American Field seen a
live snipe in the Winter where such severe cold weather is
found? Our altitude is 1,500 feet above sea level, and upon
this day the mercury stood at zero and lower all day.

Clarence A. Farncm.

. SNIPES WINTERING :

. . fa*-- ,

I TO^ES ;^ ^ ? ^

Lwenc eadillg th6 ^ ValUed Ambrioan I notice that

evidence is required to support the theory that English

snipes 0 Scolopax wilsonii) light on trees. Now, I am sure
they do, and also woodcocks. Last Fall, as Jim Riley—
the oarsman, who is a capital hunter and trapper-was
polemg his duck punt through the Old Ditch, a sort of
slough on the shore of Saratoga Lake, near the mouth of
he Kayaderosarus Creek, and separated from the main
lake by a strip of bog meadow, its shores being grown with
cat-tails, wild rice, etc., and quite a favorable spot for ducks

!!oueeMn S ’v e 'T’, 0 ' 10 6V0ning ’ comin S trough this place,
a queer looking bird standing or perched on the branch of

n old dead tree. Standing on the bank of this Old Ditch

and't'^ I T t L 0d L- feet fr ° m th6 ground ’ he raised his gun
and killed the bird while so perched. On picking it up he

found it to be a veritable English snipe, and when he re-
lated the circumstances to me, to make sure, I asked to see
he bird and sure enough it was a genuine Scolopax wilsonii
So much for English snipes perching on trees. Again, one
Autumn while out for woodcocks near the mouth of this
vayaderasaros Creek, where grow some large trunk wil-
ows I flushed a woodcock and it alighted on the leaning
trunk of one of these big willow trees, and seemed perfectly
at home m this situation. The above are actual facts and

n 0 i?] ti 1 , 1 ' 8 ?' t t Washington A. Coster.

Flatbush, L. I.

Birds of the Adirondack Region.
C, HuMet'ri&xti.

f* allinaeo media wilsoni ( Temminck) Ridg-way. Wilson’s
SN^K -On the yth of October Mr. Gregoire de Willamov (Secretary of
£ Russian Embassy) shot and killed a bird ofthisspec.es on the b.g
marsh at the head of Big Moose Lake, Hamilton County.

A f~\ —A. lOOl O.Qd

Birds Tioga 0©, N.T. Aldan Loring

~526. Wilson’s Snipe. Found during the
spring migration around the wet and swampy
places. Arrives here in small detached flocks.

QtSsQ, XV, Jane, 1890, p.86

Gallinago delicata. Wilson’s Snipe. — The first individual was seen
July 11. It was not again seen until Oct. 1 , after which two or three speci-
mens were seen each week until Oct. 20. It was not as common as usual.

AOk 27. July -1910 p.

Jp*

Albinism and Melanism in North
American Birds, Ruthven Deane

ft G. Wilsoni I have been shot in white plumage,
BnlL N,©.0, 1, April, 1876, p.22

Wilson’s Snipe ( Gallhiago xvilso?ii ) Nesting in Massachusetts. —

As I was hunting for Least Bitterns’ nests in one of our swamps in
Brookline, where they breed in considerable numbers, — that is, I found
three nests this year there, one with three eggs, the other two with five
young ones apiece, — I thought I w'ould leave the sedges^ where they build
and look among the high grass, which grows at the side of the marsh
for a Carolina Rail’s nest. Just on the border of the grass I started up a
Snipe, that seemed to me to sit closer than usual and in a very curious
manner. She came very near to me, chiding me as if in great trouble.

I looked in the grass very carefully and finally found her nest, with four
half-grown young birds, which, when I approached, scampered off
among the high grass which surrounded the nest. They seemed to be
able to run about and take care of themselves perfectly well. The date
was the 18th or 19th of June, I cannot be sure which, as I have mislaid my
book in which it was entered. I think the eggs must have been laid
about the second or third week in May, which seems to me quite early. —
Nathaniel A. Francis, Boston , Mass.

Bali N; 0.0, 8, Got. 1888. P, AV3

668. Late Snipe. By S. R. Ingersoll. Ibid., No. 26, p. 515. — Taken at^ ^
Cleveland, O., Dec. 23, 1883.

Fo r, & Stream. Vol. XXI

OuA 'l/* U/xEj~. ' -'C Ch , J 7 1 T_

^ • For, & Stream. Vol. 34 , /.p. . y« t - ye s' j

554 - Wilson’s Snipe. By J. H. L. (Buffalo, N. Y.). Ibid., XIX, No.

6, PP- U2, 113. Feb. to, 1883. — On the habits of Gallinago -wilsoni ■

American FieltS*

AJiyJjtXL. ,

1 ft- 2.67

PP- 503 . 504— J- A. A.

Auk. 4, Oct. 1887, p. 337-3*1 A-

publications Received. — Berlensch. Hans ,mn v^..

1703. Col. Pickett’s English Snipe. Ibid. — Gallinago delicata
wintering in Wyoming. See also antea, No. i68o.For, &Stream, Vol, 80
1265. The Habits of Snipes. By A. Guthrie. Ibid., No. io, March
5, p. 224. — Snipe seen alighting in trees and on fence^M&^Fic&n Fl^UL X S C VIj

18S9. [ Haunts of Gallinago delicata.'] Editorial. Ibid., March 27

d. 18^. TP/yi*. vr 1 ° ' r , . j v—, ,

1680. The Hardy Snipe. By W. D. Pickett. Ibid ..Feb. 2 p. 24.-

Galli nago delicata winterin g in Wyoming. For, & Stream. VOl, Q
1740. Jacksnipe in January. By G. C. P. Ibid., Jan. 17, p. 515. —
Gallinago delicata (?) at Granville, Ohio. < 8 §Str©&X 0 .e ' 7 0 l t ol

^ 7x . 'ifu. 'is-, f J I y-yY/ztg)

Snipes Wintering in the Nobth. — Taylor, Arizona.-^-
Editor American Field : — Having noticed in your issue of
February 4 the communication from Mr. C. A. Farnum of
Wellsville, N. Y., I take pleasure in replying that I have
seen the “Wilson snipe” in the Winter time, in as severe
cold weather as he speaks of, and to me it was a matter of
very great surprise. Though the latitude of my place is
much less than where Mr. Farnum resides, the altitude is
nearly C,000 feet, which gives us very cold weather during
the Winter, the mercury often dropping below zero for
many days. Our water supply comes from a spring which
runs oil in a small ditch and the water being warm, it never
freezes. Now, two Wilson snipes have had possession of
that ditch all Winter, and being curious to see how long
they would remain I have not molested them. I first no-
ticed them early in J anuary during a severe spell of weather,
when the ground was covered with nearly a foot of snow,
but the little fellows would feed up and down the ditch
seemingly happy and contented. I have noticed others
this Winter whiie shooting ducks on “Silver Creek,” which
is a small stream fed by a few warm springs. This is the
first time I have ever seen the Wilson snipes Wintering in
such a cold climate, and I am observing them with much in-
terest. “Bluebill.”

-■ ~

HE JACKSNIPE (QallinagoWiUonii) AS A RUSTLER.

,j *Uttb. , S~y f ft •

/AA£23;2. s ^<Mee-tee-se, Wyo. Teh.
Editor American Field:— My attention was recently
rrested, in a late issue, by an account of a very late ap-
earance in the Fall of the jacksnipes at some point in Wis-
onsin, I believe. This reminded me of an intention al-
eady formed of giving you the particulars of a still more
rratic performance of this justly celebrated game bird. It
ill be premised that my locality is among the foothills of
he Rockies, at an elevation of about 6,500 feet, near the in-
ersection of the 109)4 ° meridian west longitude and the
4th parallel of latitude. Winter set in rather early as,
n the 30th of October, there was a minimum of 3 ° F. ; be-
ween the 15th and 25th of November a long cold snap, with
inimum during several days of 13 ® , 20 ® , 21 ° ; on De-
cember 11, 3° ; December 21, 8° ; December 26, 26° ; De-
•ember 31, 6° ; January 6 to 10, 1887, with minimum of
2 ® and 27 ° , and January 17, 11)4 ° .

During the Summer at several times were seen a pair or

0 of these birds in my upper meadow, but they were
bought to be transient passers. On December 25, after the
everal cold snaps above given, I was astonished, in passing

an open spring in my upper meadow, to see a pair of jack-
snipes fly up, giving tongue to their old familiar “scaipe.”

It should have been stated that since the middle of Novem-
ber the whole country has been wrapped in a mantle of ice
and snow ; no open water except a few springs that had
een sufficiently cleaned out to prevent freezing. There is
a spring in my upper and another in my lower meadow yet
pen, from which are drain ditches of twelve to twenty-four
'nches in depth that, from the drifting of the
snow, have been covered over and are really
covered drains, the water passing through without
freezing. The water from the springs runs ten to fifteen yards
before entering these covered drains, which is the only open
water known for ten miles. After first noticing the pres-
ence of these birds, I have been on the lookout for them
and have placed bread and slices of beef where they would
be likely to find it. It was devoured by some birds, but
whether by jacksnipes or that prince of thieves, the magpie,
or the dear, cheerful, sociable little chick-a-dee, it is un-
known. These snipes have been several times seen at one
or the other of these springs since December 25, the last
time until to-day (January 31) on the 17th of January.
Since then, within a few days past, a fearful blizzard has
passed over this district, the barometer having been at the
lowest point ever reached. It lasted sixty hours, with wind
at its maximum velocity, but its temperature at no time
reaching lower than 3° F. To living things exposed to it
hat was, however, equivalent to a temperature of 30° or 40°
elow zero with the air calm. Every particle of water ex-
cept these two springs was covered with snow for that time.

1 had given up hope for the jacksnipes, until to-day, January
31, 1887, when I was rejoiced to hear their familiar
“scaipe” as they flew up from near the spring, flying as vig-
orously and “scaipeing” as cheerily, as I have so often
hear^^&e^wshesjn Missouri and Illinois.

Where do these birds roost and on what do they subsist ?
In getting up from the spring, they sometimes fly fifty
yards into a willow thicket through which a branch runs,
which has a few open places, into which they alight and
they are there a little more protected from the wind than at
the springs. They could easily get into those covered
i ditches, which are wejl ventilated and warm, and where
< they could feed' oh water plants, or worms were there any
to be had. Each spring branch has tender water plants on
which they probably subsist. I shall watch their movements
and report further as to their welfare. I had thought, at
one time, of invoking the prayers of all good sportsmen for
the welfare of these birds, but on second thought, it seemed
doubtful that they would be of much avail and, secondly,
these jacksnipes had proven themselves such “rustlers,”
that it appeared they were in nowise in need of Divine in-
terposition.

This recalls that about the middle of October, 1880, I saw
a pair of these birds on the head waters of the North Fork of
Stinking River, Wyoming ; the river thereloccupies a gorge _
in the mountains four to five thousand feet below the over-
looking mountains, with occasionally a sage brush flat slop-
ing down to the water. In passing along the trail through
one of these flats, a pair of these birds flew up and lit just
ahead. My shotgun being convenient, I killed them and ^
found them fat. They were found to be delicious eating,
even after fat elk. Though the stream was not frozen, the
ground was frozen at that time.

Though these details are somewhat extended, I am sure
they will be of interest to a large class of your readers.

P. S , February 3. Since the above was written an unus-
ually cold snap has followed the blizzard. On the night of
February 1 the temperature receded to 36 ° below zero
(Farenheit), and all day February 2, 20 ° below was the
highest, usually 25 ° to 30 ° . Being anxious about Jack’s
welfare, he was hunted up, and approaching cautiously,
close enough to see his eyes, he was observed sitting in the
water of one of the springs, his legs covered with water, his
head buried as far as possible in his feathers, and making
.himself as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.
The water of ;One of the springs tested to-day showed a
temperature of .41 ° F. This snipe, it will be admitted, is a
oYinil rustier

ociation will include all its original lounaers intended,
nd for this purpose the association is sending out the fol

BABBITS FROM AUSTRALIA.

Commissioner Colman of the Department of Agriculture
has made public the following, regarding the rumor of in-
tended importation of rabbits from Australia into the United
States :

For some time past the press of the country has contained
paragraphs relating to the expected introduction into the
United States of the “ Australian rabbit,” and the gravest
fears have been expressed concerning the probable effect of
such importation upon our agricultural industries, hence a
few facts concerning this rabbit may prove of interest. In
the first place it should be stated that in reality there is no
“ Australian ” rabbit, no species being native to that country.
The rabbit that has done so much harm in Australia and
New Zealand is an introduced species — namely, the common
rabbit of Europe ( Lepus cunieulus). Not only did this rab-
bit become a pest to the gardeners and fruit-growers, but it
soon multiplied to such an extent as seriously to interfere
with sheep-raising, by destroying the pasturage. In New
Zealand the legislature took the matter in hand in 1876 and
began the enactment of a series of stringent laws for the
suppression of the rabbit scourge. In 1881 more than 500,
000 acres of sheep runs had been abandoned on account of
the rabbits, the loss to the exports of the colony was calcu-
lated to be $3,500,000 per annum, and it was estimated that
upward of 18,000,000 of rabbits were killed in New Zealand
in a little oyer three years. In the United States we certainly
have enough rabbits of our own, and the injury they now
inflict upon our agricultural industries is by no means insig-
nificant, if any reliance is to be placed upon the complaints
of fruit-growers in the Mississippi Valley and in California.
Many cases might be cited, prominent among which is that
of the English sparrow, to show that the transplanting of a
naturally prolific species to a country where the conditions
for existence are favorable gives it a peculiar impetus and
enables it to crowd out and supersede the indigenous related
species. While there is no positive evidence to show that
the European rabbit would be the curse in this country that
it is in Australia and New Zealand, yet there is no proof to
the contrary, and its introduction here would be, to say the
least, an unnecessary and hazardous experiment.

As to the power of an officer of the government to prevent
the introduction of this pest in the United States, I know of
no law conferring any such authority. Congress might
enact a law conferring upon the commissioner of agricult-
ure the power to prevent the landing of any animal, bird, or
other pest in any port of the United States that in his opin-
ion would be injurious to agriculture on the same principle
that it prevents the introduction of cattle affected with con
tagious diseases.

Unless there is premeditated importation by dealers, how
ever, there would seem to be no occasion for alarm.

THE HABITS OF SNIPES. y

ClIRISTIANSBURG, OHIO.

Editor American Field : — I know that there are a great

many sportsmen who will differ with me and say that snipes
do not alight on trees, fences, etc. I find that Captain A.
H. Bogardus, in his “ Field Cover and Trap Shooting,” page
146, says, “ I have never met a man who had seen or pre-
tended to have seen a. snipe alight on a tree or fence at this
or any other time.” Snipes must therefore differ in their
habits in different localities. I always had my doubts about
the matter (many good authorities to the contrary notwith-
standing) until the 18th of April, 1886, when a friend and
myself, on the morning of the date mentioned, drove to a
big marsh some ten miles from here, where we have shot
snipes for many years. The morning bid fair for the day-
just such a day as one would wish for snipe shooting — but by
the time we reached the marsh the wind had raised consid-
erable, the atmosphere became hazy, and hundreds of
snipes were hovering in the air. Of course we got no shoot-
ing, but I had the best opportunity of my life to observe
their habits while hovering (or drumming as it is sometimes
called). We spent the whole day on the marsh and killed
but five snipes, notwithstanding there were hundreds of
them in sight all the time.

I was beating a strip of marsh-land alongside of a few
dead trees and, the snipes hovering all around me, I
set down on a log to watch them. While sitting there one
of the hovering birds commenced circling around and
coming down, and before I had time to think what he was

going to do he lit upon one of those trees, less than fifty
yards from me. So that there might not be any mistake I
thought I would shoot the bird as he sat on the tree, but be-
fore I could do so he dropped to the ground and I walked
him up and killed him. He was one of the finest specimens
of the snipe family I ever saw.

This being the first bird we had killed I called my friend
to admire him and while we were looking at him another
came down and lit upon a fence, about seventy-five yards
from us. I started for him, but before I got within shoot-
ing distance he took wing, coming toward me, and I killed
him as he passed me without ever taking my eyes off of
him, so I know that I killed the bird that sat upon the fence.
All the doubts I had in the matter were now forever set at
rest. I know that snipes in Ohio will sometimes alight
on trees, fences, etc. I would like to hear from other snipe
shooters in different parts of the country in regard to the
above subject. A. Guthrie.

FOREST and stream* I

For Forest and Stream.

SNIPE ATND SNIPE SHOOTING— No. 3.

(9 * — -

T HE arrival of tlie Wilson’s snipe with us in the Spring
is very uncertain, and depends entirely upon the
state of the season. If, after a cold and blustering Win- \
ter, March suddenly opens warm and genial, which is sel-
dom the case, and the frost is drawn from the ground by
the sun’s rajs, we may expect the bird soon to be on our
meadows; but not often does he reach us before the mid-
dle of the month, and then in small numbers, uneasy in
its habits, and scarcely lying to the dog. By the last of
March, or the 1st of April, the great flight of birds arrives
from the Southern States, and, like the woodcock, the
prevalence of a warm rain appears to be chosen for the
migration. The average appearance of the snipe from
Delaware eastward may, in favorable seasons, be set down
as about April 1st, but frequently, when the Spring is late,
and Winter has lingered into April, we find it passing hur-
riedly northward, scarcely visiting our meadows, and di-
recting its flight to its breeding grounds. We have always
thought the snipe, after tarrying with us until May, are
mated, and leave us in pairs ready to begin nesting. In
fact, we have on several ocasions killed and found in them
fully formed eggs as ealy as the 20th of April, and for this
reason oppose the shooting of snipe during their Spring
passage northward.

On their return from the North with their young, they
pay us a visit before moving South, reaching us in Septem-
ber and October, the first cool weather having prompted
them to seek winter quarters, making their autumnal mi-
grations southward in stages in advance of hard freezing,
stopping and resting on the route.

On our meadows of the Eastern and Middle States, where
snipe are comparatively rare, a good dog, thoroughly un-
derstanding his business in this particular, is invaluable;
but in some portions of the Southern and Western country
the bird is so numerous that a setter or pointer is of verv
little use, unless he be kept at heel and used as a retriever.
But we confess our own shooting is to us more enjoyable
when fewer are bagged, and the working of a well bred
and trained setter is added to the pleasure.

The snipe lies best to the dog on warm, sunny days,
when gentle winds are blowing, and if feeding in high
tussock meadows will not take flight until almost trodden
upon. But during blustery weather, especially if the wind
is from the northeast, they are very loath to allow even the
most steady dog to come within thirty or forty yards of
them. This is more noticeable in the Spring, when the
birds have first arrived, and are in whisps or bunches, than
in Autumn, when they appear to have made up their minds
to stay' for awhile previous to moving southward.

The snipe is noticeably the most difficult game we have
to kill, although we have seen only medium quail shots
that were really brilliant in their shooting on the meadows;
but we also noticed that such persons resided adjacent to
, good snipe grounds, and devoted much more time to it
j than to any other sport.

Beating for snipe with the wind in one’s back has been
always advised by experts, as the bird invariably rises
against wind, and flies at an angle towards you, either to
the right or left, thus presenting a more easy shot than
when going straightaway in a zig zag course. Sometimes,
however, on account of the many r ditch drains that inter-
rupt us in our tramps over the meadows, we cannot find it
as convenient by far to take the wind at our backs, and
are compelled to breast it; but we should bear in mind
that far better chances are given to kill if the advice is
carried out, and always endeavor to follow it.

Snipe not unfrequently take to swampy thickets of black
alder, and what are known as “willow gardens,” with
springy bottoms, in the Spring for shelter and food, when,
after their arrival from the South, the country is visited
with a snow squall and a touch of the past Winter. We
have on two occasions found them in such localities lying
like stones, and making capital shooting, and fully as ex-
pert in twisting their way through the sprouts and alders
as their larger cousin, the woodcock.

The snipe remains with us frequently as late as the latter
! part of November, and on occasion, while quail shooting
in the State of Delaware, we shot them on the 13tli of
December, but the weather during that month and the one
previous had beeu remarkably open and mild, and we
doubt not the bird could have been met with on the same
ground a week after. We made two memoranda that sea-
son, and they appear on reference — “Shot five Wilson
snipe on 13th December.” “Shot one well conditioned
woodcock on the 31st of December.”

We noticed in the report of the proceedings of the Na-
tional Sportsmen’s Convention, held at Niagara on the 9th
of September, that it was urged that the Spring shooting
of woodcock, snipe, and “bay birds,” during their sojourn
in the Middle and Eastern States, previous to their moving
farther North, for the purpose of breeding, should be
abolished. Nothing could more benefit the sportsman.

Recollect, every pair of birds thus killed in the Spring-
makes just three or four less in the Autumn.

In spite of being considered as given to chronic growl-
ing, we shall continue to urge, as we have always done,
the cessation of the murderous and unsportsmanlike kill-
ing of our game birds of passage on their journeys toward
their nesting ground, albeit they may not be at the time
paired, knowing well the time has arrived when the fast
disappearance of all game demands it, and we call on all
sportsmen to put aside that little selfishness we all are en-
dowed with, and have such laws passed as will benefit the
sporting fraternity of every State.

Within our own recollection, snipe ten years ago were fat-
more numerous at Pine Brook, N. J., and other meadows
of that neighborhood, and certainly in far greater quanities
on the feeding grounds bordering the Delaware and Schuyl-
kill rivers near Philadelphia. Then we could be tolerably
certain about making a bag; now we more frequently see
none than to get shots at any. The steady destruction of
the source of supply in the Spring has brought this about;
nothing else. The meadows have not changed, and food is
just as abundant.

A fellow sportsman, who had always been able to find
game enough in the neighborhood of his city home until
within a few years, made the remark to me that he found
it did not pay to keep a setter or pointer, for birds were
too scarce even to train upon, and that he intended devot-
ing his attention to the little “Bassett” for slow chasing of
the rabbit, feeling this was all that remained. Homo.

An English Snipe in Captivity. '

of^L th o e r . etainin / in captivity of any of the birds
ol the .Scolopax family has been thought almost an
impossibility, it may prove of interest to many of
your readers to learn of an English or Wilson snipe-
(the Scolopax Major) having been a captive and fed
by man, and the bird kept alive for some four months
To learn the habits of this bird, with its manners

to hp ttlT f g t S i ? tc -; w p' at otlce be understood
befor, ' lb "‘ w ’th the belief that this was never
lefore accomplished, the undersigned was, perhaps

S at *f Ive tban otherwise, and watching the
birds habits was exceedingly interesting.

ft was while shooting in the spring of the year I
took from my dog s mouth this identical bird, and
thinking it was dead, was about putting it in my

pocket, when a strong fluttering made me aware of
my mistake, and as the bird, upon examination
seemed unhurt, further than having been stunned bv
a shot that had just grazed its head, I carefully se-
cured it with a napkin, allowing freedom for the mo-
vements of its head, and so conveyed it to my homo,
tlfen at Chatham, N. J.

"‘This incident occurred in the early 60s, and while
then only a boy, I believed as much, if not more en-
thusiasm, was shown than that would be at the pres-
ent time, for well I remember of the preparations that
were made for this bird. The coachman was dispatched
with a wagon for bogs, the gardener set digging for
worms, while the pies or pastes or anything else that
happened to be in the wire safe had to be removed, as
this receptacle, when furnished as to my ideas, would
contain all the requirements that were to be found
on the meadows, and. in fact, about everything was
here supplied, but .still when this bird died its death
was apparently from starvation, and though it con-
sumed over twice its own weight of worms (about
the only diet) every day, when the bird was in good
order. Although I tried, it seemed, everything
that a snipe could find, while fresh water was sup-
plied several times a day, with new bogs, etc., yet
while the bird ate heartily, the daily loss of flesh was
very noticeable.

Just previous to the bird’s demise I found it took
quite readily to bread and milk, but whether or not
this food would have sustained life is a question that
T am unprepared to answer beyond as is above stated,
and it might have been the cause of the bird's death.
(I mention this, as the only food swallowed, with the
exception of the worms, and which, by the by, were,
whether large or small, invariably swallowed after be-
ing doubled.) The worms were quite often, but not
always washed, and the earth they contained was
ejected from them by . the snipehs squeezing process,
and it was as interesting as instructive to walch
the bird bore, etc. I had always yupposed_that each
hole (so to speak) was made by the bird probing and
withdrawing its bill each and every time, in accord-
ance with the number of holes, but instead of this if
on the first “put down” of the bill no worm is found,
the bill is only partly drawn from the earth, and then
pushed down again in a different direction, but the
moment a worm would be touched the bird’s eye
would twinkle, and become full of animation. The
snipe would quickly make fast to its prey, and be-
ing familiar and knowing just how to handle worms,
they- never would break, as they would if I undertook
to pull one out.

. The bird’s apartments, before referred to. con-
tained two pans, in one was kept water and in the
other black en rt !i and worms; and from th ' first con-
fining of this bird it never was particularly fright-
ened. and ate heartily the first day T Cfiught it. while
many were looking at it close hv. 1 should say fur-
ther I after awhile cut one of its wings and the
bird was allowed the freedom of the lawn, etc., and I
afterward took it to the meadows, recapturing it with
ease. Though this bird was never hooded — as were
the “hawks” of old, when being broken or used for
hunting purposes, and then returning to the hand that
liberated them, with apparent joy — the snipe seemed
always delighted to get back in its cage, and could
be well called domesticated. While I have made sev-
earl attempts since with wing-tipped birds, etc., in no
other instance have I been in any way successful in
keeping these birds alive, and though several ac-
counts were writtten of this bird, when in eaptivity
by the reporters of different papers. T never heard,
before or since, of any of these birds being kept in
captivity, and think many of your readers may read
of this with interest. Possibly we may hear of sorm
one that keeps them on hand and fattens them for
the market.

Milford Square, Pa. Percy C. Ohl.

Macrorhamphus griseus *?

Martha* s VineyardjMass*-

Aug ,' I890 . : Upwards of 160 were seen along the beach at
the head of the harbor. The flight was swift, direct, the bill
held slightly inclined downward, the neck drawn in, and the white

on the hinder part of the back conspicous showing as a broard

\ \

snowy -white stripe. : The note was pheu-pheu o r pheu-pheu-phe , in

mallow falsetto tones. They feed aaar wet sand, often wading in ^

A

shallow water and walking slowly with the head dow^at
each step thrusting the bill about an inch into the sand or
mud, with the mand ibles slightly open .- Occasionally one would
stop and plunge the bill down to the base several times in quick
succession**

I saw them extract and swallow long red worms (Memertian
family) resembling angle worms.

Owing to the shortness of their legs they look smaller sitting

than the Yellow legs* : They feed and fly in close bunches*-

At night-fall all the Snipe along the shore began flying up

and down the beach restlessly but they did not assemble to roost

in any one place. A small flock passed the night on the shore

near my camp; I went to the place and started them at 10 A#M*-

These birds resemble Wilson* s Snipe not a little in their move-

*

ments and manner of feeding but their flight is very different
and wholly without the corkscrew curves of Gallinagos. : Most

,L

of those seen seem to be adults in worn summer plumage*-

hi

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Penobscot Bay, Maine.

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Birds within Ten Miles of Point
de Monts, Can, Oomaau & Merriana

88. Macrorhamphus griseus. Red-breasted Snipe. — O ccurs dur-
ing the fall migration.

Bull. N. O.O, 7,Cot, 1882, p, 238

Birds of Toronto, Ontario.

By James H. Fleming.

Pt.I, Water Birds.

Auk, XXIII, Oct., 1906, p. 449.

82. Macrorhamphus griseus. Dowitcher. — Regular migrant, not
common, May 16 to 31; one taken August 1, 1894, is in full plumage, -
one taken August 24, 1891, and one September 15, 1889, are young birds.

Jt

'cjIAc

V I ^ „

' Hye Beach, N.H. 1866,

yU< j • -0 2.7 Rye Beach, N.H 1

ftfi'7

toz'l

Jiocf] tr j /f ,1? Rye Beach, N.H. 1868.

Beadh, N.H. 1871. . ' ' *“*? fo# jej- , , , %%, 3 ^ ,

i^A^A, - Jju~, fij$ t 3 / ;^Ljj-/, z, 3,f / 7 , ir, u , w t zk t m , i^(> l vr / 3«

^ Rye Beach, N.H. 1872. j ^ M.% ^ ^ 3 ,

^uiw. - Jl UyJLe l *l l l(T t JL7;duj.i ^,*,1 t /l., n.'jU,!?

Birds of Bristol County , Mass.
F. W. Andros.

Macrorhamphus griseus (Gmel.), Dowitcher.
Migrant, tolerably common.

O.&O. Xll. Sept. 1887 p.138

Limicolae in Bristol County.
H. F . Dexter, Dartmouth, Mass.

Red breasted Snipe, Macrorhamphus griseus.
Quite common in autumn along the beaches
where it resorts in small flocks. Have secured
specimens as late as the last week in October.
O.&O. XII. Sept. 1887 p.148

Shore Birds of Cape Cod.

Joh n C . O ahooh .

Red-breasted Snipe, Macrorhamphus griseus
; (Gmel.) Brown-baek on Cape Cod. A com-
mon spring, summer, and autumn migrant.
The first arrivals in the spring reach the Cape
as early as May 1. and become common about
May '20. Only a few stragglers are seen after
June 1. In the summer migration the first ones
arrive at Cape Cod about July 5. Several old
Cape gunners say that they always go for them
at Monoinoy Island the 12th of July. They are
the most common from July 15 to July 25. A
few continue to arrive until the middle of
Augusr., and by the last of that month none are
seen about the Cape. One thing that I have
noticed, is that there are very few young birds
of this species seen. Unlike the other shore
birds in the fall migration, a very great major-
ity of these birds seen on the Cape are adults.

These birds go on to the flats to feed as soon
as the tide ebbs oft' sufficient to allow them to
wade about. They follow the tide out in the
manner of sandpipers, wading belly deep in the
water, sticking their long, probe shaped bill
into the grass and mud for the numerous
marine bugs, worms, and soft shell fish that
they feed upon. Often several are seen in com-
pany with a flock of small sandpipers running
( about on the sand flats, and are easily distin-
guished from their smaller companions by their
| slower motion, larger size and length of bill.

| As soon as the tide flows, they fly to the salt
’ marshes or meadows and stop until the next
! ebb tide. They seldom go on to the high
beaches with the curlew, plover and sandpiper
that go there to roost at high tide.

They have decreased very fast during the
last five years, and where we saw a flock of
several dozen then, we now see them singly,
or in bunches not exceeding ten or twelve.
They are the least shy of any of the shore birds,
and it is due to this fact that they have de-
| creased so fast. They are easily decoyed, and
although they fly swiftly, their motion is
steady and tiiey keep closely together. They
alight in a compact bunch, and the gunner
usually shoots into them before tiiey scatter
out. Many are killed by a single discharge,
and those that remain spring up with a sharp
whistle and fly a short distance away, when
hearing what they think to be the call of a de-
| serted comrade, they wheel about and come
! skimming bravely back to the murderous spot
where they were first shot at. Again they are
shot at, and again the remaining half dozen are
loath to leave their dead and dying compan-
ions, and return to share their fate. One or
two may escape, and as they drop silently
down on some lonely sand spit, sad relics of
their departed companions, what sorrowful
thoughts must be theirs as they wait for their
comrades that will never come. When scattered
on the meadows they lie very close, and when
flushed their actions are similar to the Wilson’s
Snipe. They can swim very fast, and I have
several times got a good wetting by follow-
ing a wounded one into deep water.

O.&O. XIII. Aug. 1888 p.f il-US.

The Dowitcher at Ottawa. — On May 9, 1S90, I shot a female Macro -
rhamphus griseus feeding in a moist meadow within a mile of this city.

It is nowin my collection. — G eo. R.„White .Ottawa, Ontario.

«flg«VS t Oot, ’ 1890, p. **1)

2o. Additions to the List of District Birds. By W. F. Roberts. Ibid.,
p. 172. — Adds Macrorhamphus griseus, and states tlie whole number of
species known from the District of Columbia to be 242. Field & For,

J 983 ' Re *-l>rea S t e d Snipe in Northeast Lincolnshire. Bv lohn Cor-
^ aUX ' ° ct • lf>S2 > P- 39 2 - Record of a specimen of Macrorham-

phus griseus shot on the seacoast between Cleethorpes and Tetney Haven

Aug. 1 5, 1882. Zoologist* YI

I ! L W <X d.*.* *

/n~

5^*/< t«vwo6(A. Q_C» yws ^

272

General Notes.

TAuk

Ljuly

An Additional Note on the Genus Macrorhamphus. — It is well to
remember in connection with the breeding range of M. griseus given in
my recent paper on this genus (Auk, XVIII, pp. 157-162), that in ‘ Fauna
Boreali-Americana,’ Swainson and Richardson state that the species breeds
from the shores of Lake Superior northward, a fact which at that time
was probably true. I am also lately in receipt of, and here permitted to
record, two young specimens of M. g. scolofaceus (Nos. 167026, 167027 U.
S. Nat. Mus.) through the kindness of Mr. Edward A. Preble. They were
taken by him at Button Bay, near Fort Churchill, Hudson Bay, on July
31, 1900. The Dowitchers were, he writes me, “■ abundant in the pools on
grassy tundra,” and were moving southward. The fact of their presence
in such numbers would go to show that this subspecies, after breeding,
ranges over the country eastward to the shore of Hudson Bay before
migrating, or even perhaps breeds as far east as this point. It is, I think,
not improbable that the extreme eastern limit of their breeding range will
prove to be Hudson Bay rather than the 1 10th meridian, and that M. griseus
in the breeding season is confined to the east and north of the Bay. In
any case the occurrence of this form near Button Bay explains why they
not uncommonly reach the Atlantic coast on migrations. — Reginald

Heber Howe, Tr., Longwood, Mass.

Auk, A VIII, July., 1901, p-

A STUDY OF THE GENUS MACRORHAMPHUS.

BY REGINALD HEBER HOWE, JR.

Ever since Thomas Bell and George N. Lawrence in 1852, in
the ‘ Annals ’ of the New York Lyceum of Natural History (Vol. V,
pp x— , recognized that long- and short-billed forms of this genus
existed, ornithologists have either been loath (Coues, Birds of the
Northwest, p. 477) to accept the two forms, or have been puzzled
to identify many specimens in the collections.

A month or two ago while examining some fifteen specimens of
this genus in search of a male Long-billed Dowitclier, the fact of

r—i — x

maculata) (see Auk, Yol. XVI, p. 179, and Vol. XVIII, p. 107), the
males exceed the females in size, while in the present genus the
reverse is true. The Wilson’s Snipe (■ Gallinago delicata), American
Woodcock (. Philohela minor), the genera Limosa and Numenius , all
show this latter type of sexual variation to a greater or less degree.

Macrorhamphus griseus Gmelin.

Geographical Breeding Range. — The breeding range of this
species is given as “within the Arctic Circle” in Chapman’s
‘ Hand-book’ (p. 155), based on what data, other than hypotheti-
cal, I am ignorant. We know, however, from various sources 1
that it breeds in Ungava. Its breeding range I think can be
safely said to be to the north and northeast of Hudson Bay, from
the 55th parallel northward to Greenland, 2 probably also a little

1 Turner, Birds of Labrador, 1885, p. 246; Stearns, Bird Life in Labrador,
1886, p. 53.

2 Arctic Manual and Instructions, 1875.

^ 2 <?

Birds of Toronto, Ontario.

By James H. Fleming.

Pt . I , Water Birds.

Auk, XXIII, Oct., 1906, -p. 449 .

83. Macrorhamphus scolopaceus. Long-billed Dowitcher — Rare
migrant; there is a specimen in Mr. Ernest Seton’s collection, taken Sep-
tember 3, 1888; one without date in my collection, and a full plumaged
bird from Hamilton (39 miles west), August 12, 1891.

YUoZ ~v >U~j

6 Macrorhamphus scolopaceus, law.- A female was shot at
Eastham by Mr. Frank L. Tileston,. November 2, 1878. Wbhout pi-esum-
in „ t0 decide whether this is entitled to rank even as a vauety, the
‘rlls tt this bird was in a very different form from the common
M. or i S eus and was shot at a period mneh later than the latter btrd

been known to appear.

Bull* ST, O.O. 4, Jan, J879, P

Shore Birds of Cape Cod.

John C. Gaboon.

Long-billed Dowitcher, Macrorhamphus scol-
opaceus (Say.) A rare migrant. In New Eng-
land Bird Life , Vol. II, I find the following
note: “A female was shot at Eastham by
Mr. L. Tileston, November 2, 1878. I have not
been able to distinguish it from M. griseus.

O.&o. XIII. Aug. 1888 P.iat.

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/ / ’ / 1 Cc—n. tcc csC'ZjiAr' 0—vK.tbi- /' 7 7 ^ 7 /' X t c^-i kC-I ji crfiefi .

Macrorhamphus scolopaceus? — Aug. 29, 1895. A male bird (bv dis-
section) was taken at the Hummock Pond. This being a young bird of
the year, it is next to impossible to certainly identify it. AT. griseus
is not uncommon here, but this is the first instance in which 1 have
taken what I suppose to be A/. scolopaceus.

7 ilex ^ 7? ees-JCZ*. crWjcfi.

Bird Notes from Long Id. Wm. Dutcher

4. Macrorhamphus griseus scolopaceus (Say) Cones. Red-bellied
Snipe. — July 23, 1884, while shooting at Shinnecock Bay, three individ-
uals of this species came to my stools at the same time, two of which
were secured. I sent them to Dr. A. K. Fisher of Sing Sing, N. Y., with
particulars of their capture. He wrote me as follows : “I should consider
No. 55 a fair example of M. griseus scolopaceus. No. 56 is one of those,
doubtful; just on the line; but if the note was different it might be con-
sidered the mate of No. 55, as they were male and female.” The bill of
the larger specimen measured 2.83 inches and of the smaller 2.38 inches.

Auk, 2, Jan., 1886. p. psjj.

Long Island Bird Notes N. T. Lawr ence

II. Macrorhamphus griseus scolopaceus. Greater Long-beak.—
Secured a specimen in Fulton Market, New York, October^, 1884, killed
on the south side of Long Island.

Auk, 2, July, 1886. p.273

Bird Notes from Long Id. Wm. Dutoher

6. Macrorhamphus griseus scolopaceus (Say) Coues.
Red-bellied Snipe. — A female of this species was shot Sep-
tember 19, 1882, by a sportsman stopping at “Lane’s” on Shinne-
cock Bay, who kindly presented it to me. September 26, 1883,
I secured another in the same locality. The gunners about
Shinnecock Bay claim that they can distinguish the note of this
bird from that of its congener, Macrorhamphus griseus. The
measurements of these two specimens are as follows :

Extent. Wing. Gape.

19.00 6.00 2.75

18.50 5.75 2.50

Length.
11.87
1 1. 00

Auk, I, Jan, , 1884. p. 3Z.

Long Island Bird Notes. Wm. Dutcher

8. Macrorhamphus scolopaceus. Long-billed Dow-
itcher. — I think that on Long Island this wader may be called a
regular, but not common, late fall migrant. September 26, 1884.
Mr. F., M, Chapman informed me that he procured three while
at Shinnecock Bay. Capt. Lane, of the same place, wrote me
that his sons shot three October 6, 1885, and on the next day two
more. Mr. E. A. Jackson wrote me that he saw, at Atlanticville,
a Dowitcher on the 5th of October, and another on the 9th.
They were undoubtedly scolopaceus, as the common form is never
found in this locality so late in the season. October 9, 1885, Mr.
W. F. Hendrickson shot one at Long Island City.

Auk, 3. Oct. , 1886. p. *

Auk, XII, July, 1895, p . 3/3 .

/ c pr-isk ,

Macrorhamphus scolopaceus. Long-billed Dowitcher. I

indebted to Mr. Grieb for a specimen shot from a flock of Af. griseus
Strawberry Island, Niagara River, in October, 1892.

'3~u^jL eL/ Co ( <-^ t Z -

am

on

the geeatbk —

by NEWBOLD T. LAWRENCE.

u . , , n be held by certain eminent ornithologists

As this bird seems to be h ^ y j ghouW like to give

to be rather a doubtful species or Lon g p s i a nd, where I have

my experience with it ;<n -J*™ ecime ns and noting two others,

had the pleasure of secur ^ of gome forty specimens

and also give the resu . «The supposed species

of both birds. Dr. Elliott o _ y ^ ^ biU; is not even
(J f. l *“ d ‘", rg T llll „. t flock contain. a pc cent

sr ihe

Lawrence on the Greater Long-Beak. 155

normal individual variation.” * He then gives the measurements of
nine specimens shot out of the same flock, the mininum length
being 10.25, grading to a maximum of 12.50, and in the bill from
2.20 to 3.25. From this we see the variation in length and length
of bill is about one inch, which, he says, “ is not much more than
is frequently found in examples of Ereunetes pusillus and Numenius
longirostris.” This may be so, but with the last two birds the
parallel stops here, for the notes, plumage, and habits of E. pusillus
and N. longirostris are the same, notwithstanding how they may
differ in other particulars, while with the M. scolopaceus and
M. griseus there is not only a variation in size and length of bill
between the two birds, but the notes, plumage, and habits are dif-
ferent, at least so far as I have observed, and still, with due respect
for what Dr. Coues says on the subject, in all my Bay Snipe shoot-
ing I have yet to see the flock of Red-breasted Snipe from which
any nine individuals could be shot showing the great variation in
measurement he gives, at least on Long Island, although in the
West it may be so. From this I surmise that perhaps the Red-
breasted Snipe in the West is M. scolopaceus, and that the M. griseus
is merely a straggler, while on the Atlantic Coast it is just the con-
trary, the M. scolopaceus being the straggler ; particularly as Mr.
George N. Lawrence states that all specimens supposed to be
M. griseus which he has examined from Mexico have turned out
to be M. scolopaceus. The bill of this bird varies from 2.50 to 3.25,
while that of M. griseus seldom if ever reaches 2.50 in length.

The M. scolopaceus not only exceeds the other in length of bill,
etc., but the whole general appearance of the bird is very noticeably
different, and it can be easily distinguished from M. griseus some
distance off.

Mr. George FT. Lawrence says : “ In all three of my specimens
which are in full summer plumage, the breast and entire abdomen
is of a uniform rather pale rufous without spots or bars, but having
the sides of the breast transversely barred with black. In an
example from Texas, the breast is barred in the same manner as the
ones from Cuba.”t

In all of the seventeen specimens of M. scolopaceus I have exam-
ined, this character of the plumage is strongly marked, with still

*' Birds of the Northwest, p. 477.

t Notes on Cuban Birds, with Descriptions of New Species. Annals of
Lyceum of Nat. History of N. Y., Yol. VII, p. 272.

156

Ridgway on Macrorhamphus griseus, etc.

157

Lawrence on the Greater Long-Beak.

another feature, and that is in having the feathers of the breast and
abdomen edged with a lighter rufous or white, this being particularly
strongly marked on a specimen in the collection of Mr. George N.
Lawrence taken in Florida during the spring of 1879. In summer
specimens of M. griseus, the rufous of the breast blends into white
on the abdomen, and the whole is more or less spotted. .

In the notes, which are so characteristic of all the Lmucolce, and
in the time of its arrival and departure during the spring and fall
migrations, it differs essentially from M. griseus. The note of M.
scolopaceus is much louder and clearer, and easily distinguished from
the rather plaintive note of M. griseus, bearing about the same rela-
tion to it as the notes of the Big and Little Yellow-leg bear to each

other.

Mr. George Lawrence Nicholas, in speaking of the capture ^of a
specimen of°this bird last summer, on Shinnecock Bay, says : “The
note was entirely different from that of a Dowitcher, being made
up of several quick sharp whistles. I am quite sure it is not a
Dowitcher, as it is quite different in color, the under parts being
like those of Tringa canutus, and only the throat and sides being
spotted. Mr. Lane, with whom I was staying, says that for the
past three years he has seen these birds in company with the
Dowi'tciiers, and they seem to be increasing in numbers. He and
the other gunners of the house also say they have never heard this
bird give a note anything like that of the Dowitcher.” *

In regard to the spring arrival of this bird, Mr. George N. Law-
rence gives March 20 as the earliest date, he having secured several
specimens in Fulton Market, N. Y„ at that time, from Long Island
which is about six weeks earlier than any recorded capture of M.
griseus. The gunners in the vicinity of Rockaway, L. I., make a dis-
tinction between the two birds, calling M. scolopaceus the White-tail
Dowitcher, and say it is the first to come in the spring, and that
during the southern migrations it remains until late m the fall,
after the Dowitchers have disappeared. Five of my specimens agree
with the prevailing opinion of being late migrants ; the sixth is m
summer plumage, taken in August, and is my earliest record from

Long Island.

The latest record I can find of this bird is a note by Dr. Thomas
M. Brewer, f in which he speaks of the capture of a specimen of

* “Bird Notes from Long Island,” Forest and Stream, Vol. XIV, No. 3. 4

t Bulletin of Nuttall Orth. Club, VoL IV, No. I, p. 64.

_ 1

M. scolopaceus at Eastham, Mass., by Mr. Frank L. Tileston, Nov.

2, 1878.

I have never seen more than one at a time, although an old
gunner informs me he has had a flock of five come in to his decoys.

The following are my records of the bird in question : —

Sept. 27, 1873. Shot a young female out of a small flock of Totanus
flavipes ; when first seen it was supposed to be a Dowitcher, but at the
same time I was struck with the large size and length of bill noticeable at
quite a distance. (This was the first time I had seen the bird alive.)

Sept. 28, 1873. One observed flying with a flock of Totanus flavipes.

Sept. 15, 1874. Had a fine specimen alight within a few feet of my
blind while Snipe-shooting ; it was very gentle, and I watched it for some
time, but, on starting it up, failed to secure it.

Sept. 25, 1875. Shot an immature bird in a salt pond on the marshes ;
peculiarity of note noticed.

Aug. 7, 1878. Secured an adult specimen in summer plumage; came
in to the decoys alone ; abdomen uniform pale rufous.

Oct. 13, 1878. While lying for Ducks at a pond on the marshes early
one morning, I heard the note of this bird from high overhead, but could
not see it ; the next moment it darted down and settled alongside of a
Duck decoy, notwithstanding the water was almost up to its breast, where
I secured it. Bull. N. O.O. 5,Jnly, 1880, p. /4'T .

ON MACRORHAMPHUS GRISEUS (GMEL.) AND M. SCOLO-
PACEUS (SAY).

BY ROBERT RIDGWAY.

Not being fully satisfied in my own mind as to the exact status
of the bird called Macrorhamphus scolopaceus, and there being much
variance of opinion among ornithologists concerning the bird in
question, I was induced, some months since, to submit to a very
close examination all the material at my command, and to carefully
analyze all the published data bearing on the subject. The collec-
tion of birds of this genus in the National Museum, while very ex-
tensive (embracing no less than 75 specimens), was unfortunately
deficient in examples from Eastern localities ; therefore the conclu-
sion arrived at from the study of this material alone proved errone-
ous, from the fact that nearly all were of the scolopaceus type, the

158 BlDGWAY on Macrorharnphus griseus, etc.

true griseus being scarcely represented. Subsequent correspondence
with Messrs. George N. and Newbold T. Lawrence, of New York
City, both of whom were much interested in the subject, led to the
exchange of specimens for examination, and I thus for the first time
became autoptically acquainted with the Eastern bird. With this
additional material to aid me, I have reviewed the matter, and the
result is a perfect correspondence of my views with those of the gen-
tlemen above named, as embodied in the preceding article, except
that I cannot regard the two forms as specifically distinct, since
intermediate specimens do unquestionably occur, although they are
exceedingly rare.

The results of my later investigations may be briefly summarized
as follows : — -

(1.) That in Western North America specimens never occur which,
in summer plumage, have the abdomen either whitish or speckled,

or the sides speckled. _

(2 ) That specimens marked as above are peculiar to the Atlan ic

coast (I have seen none from west of the Alleghanies), where they
abound during the migrating season, in the proportion of about
1 000 to 1 of scolopaceus (according to Mr. Lawrence, m epist.).

(3 ) That size and proportionate length of bill, legs, etc. is much
more variable in both forms than is the coloration, scolopaceus
averaging decidedly larger, however, than griseus. ^

bird give a note anything like that of the Dowitcher.” *

In regard to the spring arrival of this bird, Mr. George N. Law-
rence gives March 20 as the earliest date, he having secured several
specimens in Fulton Market, N. Y., at that time, from Long Island,
which is about six weeks earlier than any recorded capture of A .
griseus. The gunners in the vicinity of Kockaway, L. I., make a dis-
tinction between the two birds, calling M. scolopaceus the White-tail
Dowitcher, and say it is the first to come in the spring, and that
during the southern migrations it remains until late m the fall,
after the Dowitchers have disappeared. Five of my specimens agree
with the prevailing opinion of being late migrants ; the sixth is in
summer plumage, taken in August, and is my earliest record from
Long Island.

The latest record I can find of this bird is a note by Dr. Thomas
M. Brewer, f in which he speaks of the capture of a specimen of

* “Bird Notes from Long Island,” Forest and Stream, Yol. XIV, No. 3. .
t Bulletin of Nuttall Orth. Club, Vol. IV, No. I, p. 61.

_ i:

Bidgway on Macrorharnphus griseus, etc.

157

M. scolopaceus at Eastham, Mass., by Mr. Frank L. Tileston, Nov.
2, 1878.

I have never seen more than one at a time, although an old
gunner informs me he has had a flock of five come in to his decoys.

The following are my records of the bird in question : —

Sept. 27, 1873. Shot a young female out of a small flock of Totanus
flavipes ; when first seen it was supposed to be a Dowitcher, but at the
same time I was struck with the large size and length of bill noticeable at
quite a distance. (This was the first time I had seen the bird alive.)

Sept. 28, 1873. One observed flying with a flock of Totanus flavipes.

Sept. 15, 1874. Had a fine specimen alight within a few feet of my
blind while Snipe-shooting ; it was very gentle, and I watched it for some
time, but, on starting it up, failed to secure it.

Sept. 25, 1875. Shot an immature bird in a salt pond on the marshes ;
peculiarity of note noticed.

Aug. 7, 1878. Secured an adult specimen in summer plumage; came
in to the decoys alone ; abdomen uniform pale rufous.

Oct. 13, 1878. While lying for Ducks at a pond on the marshes early
one morning, I heard the note of this bird from high overhead, but could
not see it ; the next moment it darted down and settled alongside of a
Duck decoy, notwithstanding the water was almost up to its breast, where
I secured it.

ON MACRORHAMPHUS GRISEUS (GMEL.) AND M. SCOLO-
PACEUS (SAY).

BY ROBERT BlDGWAY.

Not being fully satisfied in my own mind as to the exact status
of the bird called Macrorharnphus scolopaceus, and there being much
variance of opinion among ornithologists concerning the bird in
question, I was induced, some months since, to submit to a very
close examination all the material at my command, and to carefully
analyze all the published data bearing on the subject. The collec-
tion of birds of this genus in the National Museum, while very ex-
tensive (embracing no less than 75 specimens), was unfortunately
deficient in examples from Eastern localities ; therefore the conclu-
sion arrived at from the study of this material alone proved errone-
ous, from the fact that nearly all were of the scolopaceus type, the

158 Eidgway on Macrorhamphus griseus, etc.

true griseus being scarcely represented. Subsequent correspondence
with Messrs. George N. and Newbold T. Lawrence, of New York
City, both of whom were much interested in the subject, led to the
exchange of specimens for examination, and I thus for the first time
became autoptically acquainted with the Eastern bird. With this
additional material to aid me, I have reviewed the matter, and the
result is a perfect correspondence of my views with those of the gen-
tlemen above named, as embodied in the preceding article, except
that I cannot regard the . two forms as specifically distinct, since
intermediate specimens do unquestionably occur, although they are
exceedingly rare.

The results of my later investigations may be briefly summarized
as follows : — -

(1.) That in Western North America specimens never occur which,
in summer plumage, have the abdomen either whitish or speckled,
or the sides speckled.

(2.) That specimens marked as above are peculiar to the Atlantic
coast (I have seen none from west of the Alleghanies), where they
abound during the migrating season, in the proportion of about
1,000 to 1 of scolopaceus (according to Mr. Lawrence, in epist.).

(3.) That size and proportionate length of bill, legs, etc. is much
more variable in both forms than is the coloration, scolopaceus
averaging decidedly larger, however, than griseus.

(4.) That young birds and those in winter plumage cannot with
certainty be referred to either form, excepting that the very large
individuals (those exceeding the maximum of griseus, as given below)
are undoubtedly scolopaceus.

These conclusions, I believe, agree in the main with Mr. Law-
rence’s views concerning the two forms in question. Eollowing, X
give a brief synonymy and diagnosis of the species in its two
races.

Macrorhamphus griseus.

a. var. griseus.

The Gray Snipe.

Scolopax grisea, Gmel., S. N. I., 1788, 658 (based on the Brown Snipe
of Pennant and Latham).

Macrorhamphus griseus , Leach, Cat. Brit. Mus., 1816, 31. Cassin, in
Baird’s B. N. Am., 1858, 712. — Baird, Cat. N. Am. B., 1859, No. 524.
— Coues, Key, 1872, 253; Check List, 1873, No. 415; Birds N. W.,
1874, 476.

159

Eidgway on Macrorhamphus griseus, etc.

Scolopax noveboracensis, Gmel., S. N., I, 1788, 658 (based on the Red-
breasted Snipe of Pennant and Latham). — WiLS., Am. Orn., VII, 1813,
45, pi. 58, f. 1 .— Sw. &B,ich., F. B. A., II, 1831, 398. — Aud., Orn.
Biog., IV, 1838, 288, pi. 399; Synop., 1839, 249; B. Am., VI, 1843, 10,
pi. 351.

Scolopax (Macrorhamphus) grisea, Bonap., Synop., 1828, 330, No. 267.
— Nutt., Man., II, 1834, 181.

Scolopax puylcullii, Nilsson , Orn. Suec., II, 106.

Totanus ferrugineicollis, Vieill., Enc., Meth., Ill, 1823, 1099 (based on
the Red-breasted Snipe of Pennant and Latham).

Hab. — Atlantic Coast of the United States, breeding farther north-
ward. No specimens seen from west of the Alleghanies.

b. var. scolopaceus,

The Red-bellied Snipe.

| Limosa scolopacea, Say, Long’s Exped., II, 1823, 170.

Macrorhamphus scolopaceus, Lawr. Ann. Lyc. N. Y., V, 1852, 4, pi. 1
(Long Island). — Cass, in Baird’s B. N. Am., 1858, 712. — Baird, Cat.
N. Am. B., 1859, No. 525.

Macrorhamphus griseus, var. scolopaceus, Coues, Check List, 1873, No.
415 a.

Scolopax longirostris, Bell, Ann. Lyc. N. Y., V, 1852, 3.

“ Macrorhamphus griseus” (part), Coues, Key, 1872, 253 ; B. N. W.,
1874, 476.

Hab. — North America in general, but chiefly the western portions of
the continent ; east to the Mississippi Valley, north to Alaska, and south
to South America and the West Indies. Casual along the Atlantic coast
of the United States.

Sp. Ch. — About the size of Gallinago wilsoni, or larger. Bill long,
compressed, flattened and expanded towards the end, where (in dried
specimens) punctulated and corrugated. Shaft of first primary strong,
pure white. Axillars, tail-coverts, and lower part of rump, white, barred,
or transversely spotted, with slate-color ; upper part of rump white, usually
immaculate. Tail slaty or dusky, barred with white (or, in summer, adult,
with pale cinnamon on the middle feathers). Adult in summer: Head,
neck, and lower parts light cinnamon (the abdomen sometimes whitish),
the foreneck and sides of breast speckled, the sides and crissum barred or
speckled with dusky. Upper parts mixed black, light cinnamon, and white,
the former prevailing. Adult in winter : Belly and anal region white,
usually unspotted ; rest of the plumage nearly uniform ash-gray, somewhat
intermixed with white on the breast and sides ; wing-coverts bordered
with whitish ; a whitish superciliary stripe. Young, first plumage : Back,
scapulars and tertials variegated black and light clay-color, the latter
chiefly on the edges of the feathers ; lower parts dirty white, soiled with
dull buff or pale clay-color, especially across the breast ; jugulum and
sides usually indistinctly speckled with dusky.

160

Kidgway on (t new Alaskan Sandpiper.

Total length, about 10 to 12J inches, extent 17£ to 20|; wing, 5.30-
6.00 (5.73) ; culmen, 2.00-3.00; tarsus, 1.25-1.75 (1.53); middle toe,
.90-1.10 (1.00).

Yar. griseus.

Wing, 5.25 - 5.90 (5.65) ; culmen, 2.00 - 2.55 (2.30) ; tarsus, 1.20-1.55
(1.35) T middle toe, 0.90-1.05 (0.95).* Adult in summer: Abdomen
whitish ; breast and sides speckled with dusky.

Yar. scolopaceus.

Wing, 5.40-6.00 (5.74); culmen, 2.10-3.00 (2.72) ; tarsus, 1.35-1.75
(1.58) ; middle toe, 0.95 - 1.15 (1.01)4 Adult in summer : Abdomen uni-
form cinnamon, without markings ; breast speckled (usually scantily), and
sides barred with dusky. BuU- N.O.O. 5, Jnly, 1880, p. /$'7' / C

ON A NEW ALASKAN SANDPIPER.

BY ROBERT RIDGWAY.

The various collectors of the National Museum in Alaska hc^ve
sent from that country numerous specimens of a Sandpiper which
in\ts winter plumage greatly resembles Arquatella mrfritima
(Briinn,), but is very differently colored in its sunrp?fer dress.
After mucji search among the older authors I have bpbn unable to
find a namb .for it, and therefore, since it ’appears ' to be new to
science, take pleasure in dedicating it to the wel^tnown author of
an excellent “ Monograph of the North Amerigto Tringeee,” | also
the original describer of a kindred Alaskan/ species, the A. ptilo-
cnemis of the PrybilovSjslands. Following is a description of the

. \ f

new species : —

Arquatella couesi, Ridc/iOi — The Aleutian Sandpiper.

Sp. Ch. — Similar to A. maritime (Briinn.), but averaging slightly
smaller, and the plumage appreciably different at all ages and seasons.
Adult, breeding dress: Above fuliginous-slat'©, the feathers of the pileum
broadly edged, those of the dorsal region (including the scapulars) widely
bordered with rusty ochraceous, or bright cinnamon, (a few of the scapulars
and interscapulars tipped with white in some specimens,) the central area
of each feather nearly black, or much darker than the Wings and rump ;
lesser wing-coverts slightly, and middle coverts broadly, bordered terminally

* Extremes, and average of 18 fully adult specimens,
t Extremes and average of 40 fully adult specimens,
i Proe." Pliilad. Acad., 1861, pp. 170-205.

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1890.

Mar

7-15

Florida,

Canaverel, B anana Greek.

After the wind had blown from the north for two or three
days in succession, the water in the creeks and bays became low,
exposing broad mud flats in every direction. Then large numbers
of Stiltt*#- Sandpipers would appear, coming from I know not where,
but probably from Mosquito Lagoon to the northward, where the wat-
er always rises when it begins to lower in Indian river and its
tributaries. These Sandpipers sometimes associated with Yellow
Legs or Red-breasted Snipe, but oftener appeared in flocks of from
25 or 30 to 50 or 75, composed wholly of birds of their own spe-
cies. They flew in compact clusters or bunches, like the l eoA&F
Sand-piper, and very swiftly, doubling and turning at frequent in-
tervals and usually sweeping over and around a spot several times
before alighting, uttering, at frequent intervals while flying / a
short whistle, usually monosyllabic, but sometimes double^, resem-
bling that of the yellow Leg, but softer and more musical. Their
motions when feeding are very unlike those of the members of the

more like
the bill

jto*

those of the Sandling or some of
held down at an angle of 45, the
mud. ^auuWy -obie entire flock s
area, wotild move in one direct-
down at the same time, present-

genus Totanus, and much

the smaller Sandpiper?,

tip or slightly iaa.

spread about over a considerable
ion, all with the head and bill
ing a curious appearance. They were very unsuspicious , and could
be easily approached to within 20 yards. $ut the report of a gun
seemed to alarm them exceedingly, and, aftep being shot at once,
the flock would usually rise high in air and fly quite out of
sight. When feeding they moved at a slow walk, the body carried
in a crouching attitude. Wing-broken birds stalked directly off
over the flats, making for the shores on +Jje further side, upon
reaching which, however, they merely stood^t^ the grass, a Without
attempting to conceal themselves by crouching .

nz

Birds of Southern New Brunswick.

ML Chamberlain,

13. Micropalama himantopus. — Stilt Sandpiper. — The only known
occurrence of this bird in this vicinity is of three seen by Mr. F. W. Daniel
on the sand flats back of St. John on September 8, 1881. He secured one
of them, which is now in the museu m of the Natural History Society.

Bull. N.O.O a 7, April, 1882. p.105

Micropalama himantopus. Stilt Sandpiper. — An adult female,
secured August iS, 1902, seems to establish a first record for Nova Scotia.

pi . Vv v ^ .

^ .. Oct, , 1 , p . ^ ° V & 7 •

Birds of Toronto, Ontario.

By j airte s K . PI emi ng .

Pt . 1 , 7/ater Birds.

AuK., XXIII, Oct., 1906, p. 449 .

84. Micropalama himantopus. Stilt Sandpiper.— Regular fall
migrant not common; adults in full plumage, July 18 to 28, and young-
August 9 to September 26; there are records of birds from June 25 to 30
but I have not seen these specimens.

Attk 29. Jan ,1912, P • ft

The Stilt Sandpiper (Micropalama himantopus) at Portland, Maine.
— Mr. H. A. Purdie, in his review of a recent “ Catalogue of the Birds of
New England,” stated (this Bulletin, Yol. I, p. 73) that Micropalama
himantopus is migratory along the whole New England coast. This
elicited the rather sweeping assertion from the author of the Catalogue
that the bird had “ not been found in any part of that coast from St.
Andrews to Kittery” (Bull., Yol. II, p. 48). I desire to contribute my
evidence in support of Mr. Purdie’s statement. M. himantopus has been
repeatedly taken on the marshes and sandbars in the vicinity of Portland,
Me., during the early part of autumn. — Nathan Clifford Brown,
Portland, Me. Bull. N.O.O. 3, April, 1378, p. fQ2, .

The Stilt Sandpiper in Knox County, Maine. —On August 13, 1902,
I took a specimen of the Stilt Sandpiper (Micropalama himantopus) on
Matenic Island, Knox County, Maine. If I am not mistaken, this is the
first record of this species for that county. I was shooting Turnstones
on some half-tide ledges between Matenic and Matenic Green Island, when
1 noticed a bird flying in from seaward which I took to be a Summer Yel-
lowleg. When it came within shooting distance I dropped it on the
rocks, and on picking it up, was surprised to find that I had a Stilt Sand-
piper, which later I found to be a female.

August 23, I found Wilson’s Petrel (Oceanites oceanicus) in numbers,
four miles south of Seguin Island. They were feeding on the wash of
the bait from a fisherman’s hook, and were noticed a number of times to
plunge beneath the surface of the water for the food they were after.
Although I have watched many thousands of Leach’s Petrels while they
were feeding, I have yet to see one plunge beneath the surface. —Her-
bert L. Spinney, Seguin , Me.

AUk, XX, Jan., 1903, p.6*~

The Stilt Sandpiper, — a Correction. — On August 13, 1902, I took
what I then thought to be a Stilt Sandpiper (Micropalama himantopus )
on Matenic Island, Knox Co., Maine. The record as such was published
in ‘ The Auk,’ January, 1903, p. 65. Upon a more recent examination I
find I am in error, and respectfully ask that the same may be corrected.—
Hubert L. SpiNNE^^jeg^ Me "

The only Stilt Sandpiper ( Micropalam a himantopu s ) that I have heard
of in this vicinity this fall was taken near Pine Point, Scarborough, a day
or two previous to September 26. It passed into the collection of Bow-
doin College.

YlriZ ovo Kw ..A.H.

2. Micropalama himantopus. Stilt Sandpiper. - A Jgl^P e «‘
men in company with one Garnbetta flampes, was shot July 2u 1878, at
Nantucket. Ve capture is interesting on account of
date. [See this Bulletin, Vol. Ill, p. 148.] [ 1?— — •

/ 3

Rare Birds Taken at Cape Cod.— An adult female
Stilt S andpiper ( Micropalama himantopus,) in partly Fall
plumage, was shot at Monomoy Island, in company with
some Sanderlings, Aug. 5th, 1885. It was shot by a gunner
who gave it to me, and although it was pretty well shot up,
it made a fair skin. X. Oct.l885.p./W

Shore Birds of Cape Cod.

JohnC. Gaboon.

Stilt Sandpiper, Micropalama himantopus
(Bonap.) A tolerably common summer and
autumn migrant. It is seen on the Cape be-
tween the last week in July and the first in
September. Most of them seen at Monomoy !

Island are during the first or second week in
August. It is usually seen on the flats and
beaches in company with sanderlings and
Ereunetes pusillus , and with the exception of
being more shv its habits are the same.

O.&O. XIII. Aug. 1888 p. 12 S.

, 1895, p.J/0-

"T't Zt.irAZ- A* ■

A short time after

I shot a Stilt Sandpiper ( Micropalama himantopus) from this same
flock of Peeps. I saw in addition another specimen which had been
taken in the same locality two days before.

< 7 ?^-^ 7t- ZneU'it^ , nu^ZUjAU- ,

Auk, XIII, Jan. , 1896, P- 9% _

AcJc^tL ' Jlc-Ccd .

Micropalama himantopus. — On Aug. 29, 1895, a female was taken at
Ilummock Pond. On Aug. 31, I shot another at the same place. This
pond is a very large one. On Aug. 29, with some friends, aided by a
horse and scoop, I dug a trench to the ocean, thereby draining it, hoping
that the margins thus exposed would offer an inducement for some of
the migrants to tarry. S 'ft* c^c lia.y y ^Z^u. cU-zJc •

^J .Lcuj^ -AXkjS^ <3 l>C/-^^
\v A/XO~j Cy p/XSuz-Xr

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aM — i 7 jL-&4jit~ " 5 "'o ,

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v (£Mf- ^ . 1 1 6 ^ .

The Stilt Sandpiper in Massachusetts. — On August 9, 1906, while gunning
in Chatham, Mass., I shot a Stilt Sandpiper ( Micropalama himantopus).
It was the only one we saw, and the local gunners said it was the first one
that had been seen there for several years. — Chauncey C. Nash, Boston,

Mass . Auk, 24, July, 1907, p.

The Stilt Sandpiper in Massachusetts. — While looking over the ‘General
Notes,’ in the July issue of ‘The Auk’ I noticed a reference to the Stilt
Sandpiper ( Micropalama himantopus) in Massachusetts. I think the
rarity of this species in this State has been greatly exaggerated in this note.

On September 20, 1903, while gunning at Chatham with a friend, a
flock of about a dozen Stilt Sandpipers flew over us, and we each secured a
pair. Since then both my brother and myself have seen numbers of these
birds in the big market in Boston, which were shot along the south shore
in the vicinity of Chatham and Monomoy.

Thus it seems to me that the Stilt Sandpiper is not so rare in Massachu-
setts as Mr. Nash believes and states it to be. I would, like to hear from
other Massachusetts men in regard to the prevalence of the Stilt Sandpiper
in this State.— Winthrop S. Brooks, Milton, Mass. ^^, 7 .

/l t {'Cl i irZ, 7 t

I took a male Stilt Sandpiper ( Micropalama himantopus ) i~,

s_ cj . 2 1 /trlro

Bull N. 0.0, 5, Oct,. 1880, p. 23 1

Micropalama himantopus. Stilt Sandpiper. —This species occurred
in greater numbers than usual near Newport in August and early
September, 1903. It seems to be a very irregular migrant, varying in
numbers from year to year.

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on September 16, 1886, there was a Stilt Sand-
pipe r, young, taken; both at “Quinnipiac”
marshes.

O.&O. XII. Sept. 1887 p.lS6

Distribution of New England Birds. -
A Reply to Dr. Brewer. H.A. Purdie.

A word about the Stilt Sandpiper ( Micropalma himantopus), and I am
done. In the “American Naturalist” (Yol. Ill, p. 639) is recorded the
first supposed instance of its occurrence in New England. In the same
periodical (Vol. VII, p. 727) is given the first supposed '* instance for
Massachusetts. Again (in Yol. VI, p. 307) Mr. Brewster says : “ The Stilt
Sandpiper (Micropalma himantopus), which I see was recorded in a recent
number of the ‘ Naturalist ’ as new to our Fauna, I consider by no means
rare in its migrations. Indeed, I have seen as many as six or seven sent
into Boston market at one time, from Cape Cod, and, in the course of a
few weeks’ shooting in August, at Bye Beach, N. H. (just north of our
State limits), secured no less than ten specimens.” Not only has he since
shot it, but he, as well as myself and others, find it frequently in the
Boston markets.

* Mr. F. C. Browne, of Framingham, has a specimen taken at Plymouth in
1852.

Bull. N. O.O. 2, Jaa.,1877.p. /"•

Notes on an Unusual Flight of Stilt Sandpiper ( Micropalama
himantopus). — While walking through the Boston Markets on August 12,
1912, I was surprised to find large numbers of Stilt Sandpipers offered for
sale. This species is rather uncommon and although a few generally occur
each fall I had never before seen more than twenty or twenty-five in the
market at one time. On this date nearly every stall had bunches of them
and at one place I saw a large hamper filled with shore-birds nearly all of
which were this species. There were a few Yellow-legs and Ruddy Turn-
stones in the lot but I estimated that there were not less than two hundred
Stilt Sandpipers in this one stall. The proprietor, whom I personally know,
informed me that all came from Ipswich, Massachusetts, or the immediate
vicinity. I could not learn from the other dealers where their birds had
been shipped from but there is little doubt that practically all came from
points along the Massachusetts coast.

The presence of so many birds in the market would seem to indicate an
unusual flight along the coast and the following observations made on
Long Island, N. Y., on the same date by my friend, Mr. John Treadwell
Nichols, of the American Museum of Natural History, may throw some
light on the extent of this flight. With his kind permission I quote the fol-
lowing from his letter.

“On August 12, 1912, I observed an unusual flight of Stilt Sandpipers
at Mastic, Long Island. In about three hours time, in the early morning,
approximately 200 birds passed by a single set of stool (decoys). They
were in flocks of varying size, and mixed with them were a very few Lesser
Yellow-legs and Dowitchers. The Stilt Sandpipers taken and observed
(and I imagine all the rest) were in barred plumage.” — F. Seymour Her-
sey, Taunton , Mass.

The Stilt Sandpiper ( Mieropalama himantopus). — In a late paper
read before the Linnean Society of New York, Mr. N. T. Lawrence speaks
of this species as being common on the south side of Long Island (N. Y.).
He has quite often, while Bay-Snipe shooting, had parties of from three to
five, and very frequently a single bird or a pair, come to his decoys. And,
of the four specimens in his collection, two, in adult breeding plumage,
were taken in July, the others, in fall plumage, in September. This note
is interesting as presenting different conditions from any recorded in New
England. But one occurrence of this species is known in July, and that
in the last part of the month and fifteen miles from the sea. Mr. Geo. N.
Lawrence writes me, in reference to this same species, that he lived at Rock-
away for five summers, and on one occasion, when he was there, there was
a flight of this species and Gambetta Jlavipes, the latter the most abundant,
and of the two species there were killed over one hundred and twenty
individuals. He remembers killing six of M. himantopus at one shot.
He never saw so many together as on that day, but all through the season
scattering ones were shot. — T. M. Brewer, Boston, Mass.

Bull N. O.O. 3, July, 1878 , p. /y^.

Long Island Bird Notes N.T. Lawrence

12. Mieropalama himantopus. Stilt Sandpiper.: — I have always found
tli is bird unusually common in the vicinity of Far Rockaway, and should
like to give my experience with it on two occasions during the past two
years. On September xo, 1883, I was shooting on the meadows ; wind east ;
rained from six A. m. until twelve m. On that day I had three flocks come
to my decoys, composed of Little Yellow Legs and Stilt Sandpipers, and
numbering from fifty to one hundred birds in each. J killed nineteen,
twenty-one, and ten, respectively; among them were twenty Stilts.

On July 28, 1884, there occurred one of the largest flights of Bay Birds
at Far Rockaway that I have seen in a number of years. The day was ,
bright and clear, with a light southerly wind; it had stormed hard from
the East all the preceding day. The flight was composed almost entirely
of Little Yellow Legs and Stilt Sandpipers, every flock containing more
or fewer of each. Saw several flocks composed entirely of Stilts. One
numbering twelve came to my decoys and I killed them all. I secured
that day twenty Stilt Sandpipers, all old birds. On both the dates men-
tioned a great many flocks of traveling birds were seen flying very high ;
some of them must have numbered over two hundred individuals.

Auk, 2 , July, 1886. p.273

Auk, XII, July, 1896, p .^'3

Mieropalama himantopus. Stilt Sandpiper. — Two of these Sand-
pipers were shot by me on September 16, 1893. They were feeding in
company with some Yellow-legs ( Totanus Jlavipes ) in the bottom of the
artificial lake in South Park, which was then being excavated.

BLAKE BROTHERS 8c COMPANY,

B OSTON.

P.O.Box 2148.

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of the coast of Maine, so long as all the rest of the coast is destitute, does
not prove either that it is regular in its migrations, or that these extend
along the whole New England coast. — T. M. Brewee, Boston, Mass.

Bull N. 0.0. 3, July, 1878, P. f H S .

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Apologetic. — I sincerely regret that my hasty and inaccurate reference
to Mr. N. C. Brown’s brief mention of the occurrence, near Portland, of
the Sharp-tailed Finch should have given to that gentleman even a mo-
ment’s annoyance. Nothing could have been farther from my intention
than to “ misquote ” him. Indeed, had I quoted him the mistake could
not have been made. My point of interest was the locality, the number
seen was to me of no moment. Remembering that he had spoken of the
“ bird ” in the singular number, I had a mistaken impression that he had
seen but one. Certainly the readers of the Bulletin have no occasion to
regret my careless mistake, since it has been the means of eliciting an in-
teresting and more full account of the occurrence of this species in a before
unknown and unusual locality.

My statement that not a specimen of the Micropala ma was then known
to have been taken along the entire coast of Maine may have been “ sweep-
ing.” It was so intended to be. At the time it was made it was literally
and exactly true. Of the occasional and irregular occurrence of this bird
in the vicinity of Portland I am well aware (see Proc. Boston Soc. Nat.
Hist., Oct. 3, 1877). Its presence at a single point on the western portion
of the coast of Maine, so long as all the rest of the coast is destitute, does
not prove either that it is regular in its migrations, or that these extend
along the whole New England coast. — T. M. Brewer, Boston, Mass.

Bull N, O.O. 3, July, 18?8, p, / % ,

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Apologetic. — I sincerely regret that my hasty and inaccurate reference
to Mr. N. 0. Brown’s brief mention of the occurrence, near Portland, of
the Sharp-tailed Finch should have given to that gentleman even a mo-
ment’s annoyance. Nothing could have been farther from my intention
than to “ misquote ” him. Indeed, had I quoted him the mistake could
not have been made. My point of interest was the locality, the number
seen was to me of no moment. Remembering that he had spoken of the
“ bird ” in the singular number, I had a mistaken impression that he had
seen but one. Certainly the readers of the Bulletin have no occasion to
regret my careless mistake, since it has been the means of eliciting an in-
teresting and more full account of the occurrence of this species in a before
unknown and unusual locality.

My statement that not a specimen of the Micropalama was then known
to have been taken along the entire coast of Maine may have been “ sweep-
ing.” It was so intended to be. At the time it was made it was literally
and exactly true. Of the occasional and irregular occurrence, of this bird
in the vicinity of Portland I am well aware (see Proc. Boston Sqc. Nat.
Hist., Oct. 3, 1877). Its presence at a single point on the western portion
of the coast of Maine, so long as all the rest of the coast is destitute, does
not prove either that it is regular in its migrations, or that these extend
along the whole New England coast. — T. M. Brewer, Boston, Mass.

Bull, N, 0.0, 3, July, 18?8, p, / % ,

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— ''*• - - -

For, & Stream, fortTsS,

Stilt Sandpipers ( Micropalama himantopus) at Ithaca, N. Y. — Fol-
lowing the cold rainy days of the first of August (1912) and coincident
with the first flocks of migrating warblers, there occurred through central
New York State a considerable migration of Shore Birds. Although a few
had been noted about two weeks previously, this wasTEe first large migra-
tion of the fall. In mixed flocks along the head of Cayuga Lake, the
following species were abundant: Semipalmated, Least and Pectoral
Sandpipers, Sanderling, Lesser Yellow-legs and Ivilldeer Plover. In
addition, Solitary and Spotted Sandpipers, feeding singly, were scattered
all along the shore and likewise one Ring-necked Plover. Three days
later, I found the same species in greater numbers, and associated with
them, a flock of six Knots and one of seven Stilt Sandpipers. The number
of Knots did not change, but the flock of Stilt Sandpipers shortly increased
to eleven, although all were seldom seen at once. Two White-rumped
Sandpipers, two Black-bellied Plovers, a Turnstone, a Greater Yellow-legs,
and a Dowitcher soon added themselves to the assemblage. The majority
of these birds were adults and still in nuptial plumage. They remained
the greater part of a week, when most of them moved on, leaving only a
small number of those species which had earlier been the most numerous.

The presence of such a variety of Shore Birds, including the Stilt Sand-
pipers, induced me to make somewhat extended observations. Accord-
ingly a blind was constructed along the lake shore and many hours were
spent in watching their movements. Inasmuch as the Stilt Sandpipers
are so generally overlooked on the migration or confused with the Yellow-
legs, a few comparative observations on their habits may be of interest.

Although they might have been actually more numerous, the largest
number seen together at one time was eleven. Usually they were in groups
of from two to six and mingled with the Yellow-legs. The adults of the
two species were easily distinguished as many of the Stilt Sandpipers still
retained more or less of the breeding plumage with buffy and rufous mark-
ings about the head, and heavy bars on the sides and flanks. The immature
and molting birds of the two species, however, were much more easily
confused for the Yellow-legs lacked the checker-board markings of the
adult and approached very closely, in the back pattern, the mottling of
the Stilt Sandpipers. The bars on the sides of the young Stilt Sandpipers
being very faint, the tw-o birds were therefore outwardly much alike. The
color of the legs distinguished them, when these were visible, but when they
waded in water an inch or more in depth, even this proved an uncertain
criterion as the upper shanks of many of the Yellow-legs were dark. Again
in flight, the birds were very similar, although the white rumps and tails
of the Stilt Sandpipers seemed less conspicuous than those of the Yellow-
legs. The difference in size when the two birds stood side by side was very
appreciable but, at other times, was merely confusing.

In their habits, however, the two species were quite different. The
Yellow-legs were always rangy birds and covered a'great deal of ground
while feeding. Even when resting they were conspicuous by the nervous
jerking of the head and neck. In flight they usually formed fairly compact
flocks but scattered upon alighting. The Stilt Sandpipers on the other
hand, were quiet birds and went about their search for food very syste-
matically, gleaning everything in their way. They frequently fed in a