18 WILD LII-'I-: IN CHINA. 



The female woodcock is larger than the male, and its 

 weight varies so widely as to run hetween eight and twenty- 

 seven ounces. The former was perhaps a starved specimen, 

 and the latter one abnormally' fat for, like the snipe, the 

 woodcock is a tremendous glutton, and is soon up and down 

 in weight. At will, the woodcock can fly either as lazily as 

 a rail or as swiftly as a swallow. He traverses long distances 

 across the sea when migrating and is frequently at such times 

 found taking a rest on coasting steamers running in and out 

 of Shanghai. The lighthouse keepers, too, find that he has 

 sometimes provided a dainty change in lighthouse fare by 

 dashing himself against the lantern during the night. A 

 Heligoland observer has estimated that migrating birds, when 

 descending from their immense travelling height on to the 

 mud-flats there, pass over the last mile at the rate of 240 

 miles an hour, that is to saj% the last mile, which has been 

 carefully observed, is done in fifteen seconds! Woodcock pair 

 in Februarj', and in England the nest has been found in 

 March, though young in all stages of growth are also to be 

 found in August. Being nocturnal in its habits, the woodcock 

 is not an easy bird to watch. Hence much of the mystery 

 surrounding it. Still, a good deal is known, sufficient to 

 dispel some of the older doubts and set at rest some of the 

 earlier questions. Three or four form the usual number in 

 a clutch of woodcock eggs. Whether or no the male helps 

 in the hatching is, as has been said above, a moot point. One 

 thing is sure: the young when hatched are carried to their 

 food and not the food to them. "The Royal Natural History" 

 (Lyddeker) says that the young are pressed between the thighs 

 during this operation, but trustworthy observers have proved 

 that, however this ma}' be, the parent can take up a young 

 one in each claw and fl}' off with them. Mr. Archibald 

 Thorburn's picture showing a little woodcock having the 

 pleasure of a ride in this manner is one of his happiest efforts. 



From facts of this sort it might well be supposed that the 

 character of the woodcock for stupidity is as little deserved 

 as is that of the goose. In France, a stupid person and a 

 wojdcock rejoice in the same cognomen, "Grand bee." "O this 

 woodcock! what an ass it is," says Shakespeare, And yet, the 

 woodcock, besides showing uncommon intelligence in the 

 conveyance of its \'Oung rather than in the unceasing carrying 

 of food, is also an accomplished nurse, and can bind up 

 wounds and even brok'en limbs with the skill of a practised 

 surgeon. This is vouched for by M. Fatio of the Geneva 

 Natural Society. I cannot corroborate it from personal 

 knowledge of the woodcock, but I can of the snipe, for I once 

 shot a poor, thin specimen when the weather was very open 

 and all the rest fat, which had been wounded in the side, the 



