The Woodcock 235 



for the simplifying of the law, make them uniform for 

 general application throughout the whole of England and 

 Wales. The mean fence-time hitherto existing may be 

 said to extend from March 1st to August 31st ; but 

 February 1st or 2nd is the new date selected by the Field 

 Sports and Game Guild, the protection to last until August 

 1 2th. 



I have had several pairs of breeding woodcock under 

 observation during recent years, and obtained records of 

 others from game-preservers on estates where they have 

 been absent before. 



In a favourable season the pairing seems to be fully 

 accomplished by the first week in March. The ' ' nests " 

 are made in fairly warm, unwatered thickets often near 

 the base of the grouse moors, some being in larch woods, 

 where the trees average 60ft. high, where the ground is at 

 ordinary times hard and dry, and the nearest boring 

 ground over a mile away. The nidus, or apology for a 

 nest, is in all cases a slight hollow or scoop near or among 

 decayed leaves, preference being shown, I think, for the 

 ' ' needles " of a pine or fir the worse for decay ; but, at any 

 rate, there is a tree in the immediate vicinity. The nidus 

 is largely composed of local foliaeeous matter, eke dry 

 grass. 



It is not surprising that I almost trod upon one of these 

 "nests" quite accidentally one day, for gamekeepers 

 have been known to miss the bird herself wnile squatting 

 in the undergrowth at their very feet. No bird sits closer 

 or preserves better silence than the woodcock ; her long 

 bill of three inches being meanwhile depressed. It 

 apparently needs a bit of special training to detect her, 

 for she is in excellent harmony with the general tone of 

 her surroundings. The protective colouring is notice- 

 able in her wooa-brown back and breast, and in various 

 tinted mottlings which blend with dead leaves and the 

 soil over which they are strewn. Reddish brown is 

 overlaid with oval chestnut marks, and shades of buff 

 melt into golden and silvern grey with purposeful but 

 quiet magic. Usually the woodcock is betrayed by her 

 luminous, convex black-brown eye, which, at such 



