H2 1 he Irish Naturalist. [May, 



That genuine lover of nature, Charles Kingsley, lapses, I 

 think, into something like an error where, in " Westward 

 Ho," he describes a scene " under the Hunter's Moon," and 

 introduces " woodcocks, which, chuckling to each other, 

 hawked to and fro, like swallows, between the tree-tops and 

 the sky." The performance here ascribed to the Woodcock 

 in October seems to be really that of its breeding season, the 

 so-called "chuckle," being, in fact, a part of the bird's love- 

 song, and seldom if ever heard after June. Uttered at dusk, 

 or during moonlight, as the bird flies over the trees, the song 

 in its perfection is certainly a very curious specimen of 

 avian art, a deep, constantly repeated croak — " croho croho " 

 — varied at regular intervals by a shrill screech — " chizzic " — 

 which follows every fourth croak so rapidly as to be nearly 

 simultaneous with it. In February, however, when Wood- 

 cocks begin to tune up, their song consists of the shrill part 

 only. From about the first of March the croak begins to be 

 audible, and it is possible that a few birds may then 

 commence laying. My friend Mr. Ruttledge, of Coolbawn 

 Cottage, in this county, assures me that he has seen young 

 Woodcocks on the wing at the end of April. By the middle 

 of June most of the old birds are silent, though a few keep up 

 their weird orchestra to the month's close. 



I do not know that it has been noticed that while Wood- 

 cocks play about of a spring evening two may frequently be 

 seen to dart alongside of one another for a few hundred yards, 

 chirruping loudly and excitedly, as if in defiance. The noise 

 at such times uttered reminds one of the ceaseless twittering 

 of a flock of vSparrows . Possibly this is when one male bird 

 trespasses upon the beat of another ; at any rate, it seems to 

 be a peculiarity of the season of love and combat. 



Ballyhyiand, Co. Wexford. 



