Chapter V. 



WOODCOCK. 



If our knowledge of the snipe can hardly be called com- 

 plete, it must be acknowledged that our acquaintance with 

 the woodcock is still less so, and this in spite of the many 

 pages of print to which this favourite bird has given rise. 

 Within the last few weeks, (March 1910,) Mr. Ogilvie Grant 

 writes to the Ornithological Club respecting some obser- 

 vations which he has just made. He refers to the resemblance 

 between woodcock males and females. Only a post-mortem 

 examination, he says, can distinguish the one from the other. 

 Then he proceeds to tell of his experience in the Azores 

 where his examination discovered males in the proportion 

 of ten to one female, a fact I have seen hinted at nowhere 

 else. And after various other statements he asks whether 

 it is possible that the woodcock is polyandrous and, if so, 

 whether this accounts for the fact that in various parts of the 

 world young woodcock are found at all stages of development 

 through all the warm months of the year. Is it the male 

 which brings up the young whilst the mother is continuously 

 laying? If so, the object of the protective colouring of both 

 sexes is evident. Another fact which Mr. Grant vouches for 

 will be a surprise to many, and that is that numbers of 

 woodcock breed in the Azores. The usual idea is that their 

 nesting places are much farther north. 



I have referred to this matter at so much length in order 

 to show how verj' much we still have to learn of this interest- 

 ing bird, and how eagerly new discoveries respecting it will 

 be accepted by the bird-loving world. 



Scolopax Riisticola, as the woodcock is called scientific- 

 ally, provides, perhaps, one of the finest examples of protec- 

 tive colouring that Nature has ever made. So perfect is it 

 that its owner is usually quite justified in his perfect faith in 

 its hiding powers. Even when wounded he disdains to run, 

 but squats in the nearest bit of cover. His bright eye, how- 

 ever fitted for the night work to which he puts it, is sometimes 

 his betrayer. Occasionalh". too. Nature plays him the trick 

 she does to man}' others of her children, and turns him out 

 an albino, pure white. 



