178 WADING BIRDS. 



motion of the body, the word blaik, and sometimes palp paip^ 

 is uttered. This uncouth and guttural bleating seems a singular 

 contrast to the delightful serenade of which this is uniformly 

 the close. I heard this piping and bleating in the marshes of 

 West Cambridge on the 15 th of April, and the birds had 

 arrived about the first week in that month. This nocturnal 

 music continued at regular intervals, and in succession until 

 near nine o'clock in the evening, and is prolonged for a 

 number of days during the period of incubation, probably 

 ceasing with the new cares attendant on the hatching of the 

 brood. The female, as in the European species, is greatly 

 attached to her nest, and an instance is related to me of a hen 

 being taken up from it and put on again without attempting 

 to fly. Mr. Latham mentions a female of the Common Wood- 

 cock sitting on her eggs so tamely that she suffered herself to 

 be stroked on the back without offering to rise, and the male, 

 no less interested in the common object of their cares, sat also 

 close at hand. The European species has had the credit of 

 exercising so much ingenuity and affection as to seize upon 

 one of its weakly young and carry it along to a place of 

 security from its enemies. Mr. Ives, of Salem, once on flush- 

 ing an American Woodcock from its nest, was astonished to 

 see that it carried off in its foot one of its brood, the only one 

 which happened to be newly hatched ; and as the young run 

 immediately on leaving the shell, it is obvious that the little 

 nursling could be well reared, or all of them as they might 

 appear, without the aid of the nest, now no longer secured 

 from intrusion. In New England this highly esteemed game is 

 common in the markets of Boston to the close of October, 

 but they all disappear in the latter part of December. In this 

 quarter of the Union they are scarcely in order for shooting 

 before the latter end of July or beginning of August ; but from 

 this time to their departure they continue in good condition 

 for the table. 



The springes, or springers, set for Woodcocks in Europe in 

 places they are found to frequent by the evidence of their 

 borings, etc., are commonly formed of an elastic stick, to 



