424 GAME-BIRDS. 



tliese long journeys by short stages ; but, thougb the Wood- 

 cock undoubtedly travel about much more actively than is 

 commonly supposed from one part of a district to another, so 

 that there are often local flights, yet it is well known that 

 they very often appear simultaneously over wide areas. The 

 writer himself has seen one in the gray of morning, a mile or 

 two from land on the open ocean, flying in as if from sea. 

 This bird was solitary, but in the afternoon of the same day 

 we found six or eight birds in a bit of wood where we had 

 never seen AYoodcock before, and no doubt the morning's 

 bird was among them. 



It is quite evident that Woodcock do not fly in flocks, like 

 Plover or wild fowl, compactly and under the direction of a 

 leader, but that each travels independently, coming in contact 

 with his companions through their common tastes. Yet it is 

 said to be wise to leave a bird or two in every cover as " toll- 

 ers." Twice when the writer has met a flight, both occasions 

 being late in the afternoon, he has gone through the cover 

 once, thought it shot out, returned over the same ground as it 

 was growing dark, found half as many more, and still, as he 

 has stood after dark on the edge of the cover and has walked 

 away, he has perceived the birds dropping in one by one. 

 The next day scarcely a bird could be found there. 



The Woodcock pretty generally disappear (near Boston) 

 by the twenty-fifth of October, though it is not uncommon to 

 have good shooting a fortnight later. It seems that the old 

 birds sometimes precede the young in their flights, as is the 

 case with the Sea Coot and Golden Plover. The wTiter once 

 weighed eighteen, shot on the second of October, whose aver- 

 age weight was seven ounces. This may have been owing to 

 some extraordinary combination of accidents; but every 

 sportsman is familiar with those very small, wiry, compactly 

 feathered, weather-tanned birds, w^ho appear in October, and 

 who are called, perhaps locally, " Labrador twisters." 



The influence of w^eather upon the birds is an interesting 

 but puzzling study. A heavy rain or frost causes them to 

 shift their quarters from swamps to hillsides or vice versa ; a 

 drought or heavy flood drives them away altogether. In 

 autumn, just before a northeast storm, birds that have been 



