56 BULLETIN 142, "UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



which cover the ground beneath these trees. The eggs usually number four, but 

 at times only three are found. Their ground color is normally buff colored, 

 and they are liberally spotted and blotched by dark reddish-brown markings. 

 Nothing more primitive than the nest of the woodcock can be found in the 

 bird world. It is merely a slight hollow scraped in the ground and generally 

 without intentional lining of any kind. The mother woodcock often sits very 

 hard on her eggs, especially if incubation be far advanced, for she relies on the 

 close harmonization of her plumage with her surroundings. Sometimes I have 

 been able to approach to within a few feet of such a bird, and by not the 

 slightest movement did she betray that she was alive. As the result of her 

 early nesting, the woodcock has sometimes to cover her eggs when snow lies 

 around to a considerable depth. 



Rev. Henry H. Slater (1898) says that the nest is "often at the 

 foot of a young Scotch fir, or other tree." 



Eggs. — The European woodcock usually lays four eggs, but as 

 many as six and even eight have been found in a nest, probably the 

 product of two birds. These are much like large eggs of the Amer- 

 ican woodcock. They are about ovate in shape and have a slight 

 gloss. The ground colors vary from " deep olive buff " to " cream 

 buff." They are usually sparingly, but sometimes quite heavily, 

 marked with irregular spots and small blotches. The underlying 

 markings, in light shades of drab are numerous and quite conspicu- 

 ous. Over these are varying amounts of spots and blotches of light 

 browns, ranging in color from " snuff brown " to " clay color." 

 Occasionally there are a few spots or scrawls of " bister " or " clove 

 brown" about the larger end. Herbert Massey (1913) describes the 

 eggs as follows : 



The ground color ranges from the palest cream (nearly white) through 

 deeper cream to pale buff, yellow-buff, and the deepest brown buff (many of 

 the eggs of this latter type having a distinct pink tone), speckled and spotted 

 and blotched with yellow-brown, dark brown, and purplish gray. As a rule, 

 the eggs in the same set are fairly uniform in the pattern of the markings, 

 but occasionally you get a set with one egg much more marked than the other 

 three, and in many cases you find two distinct shades of ground color in the 

 same set. 



The measurements of 100 eggs, furnished by F. C. R. Jourdain, 

 average 43.8 by 33.6 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes 

 measure 49 by 34.8, 44.9 by 36.4, 40.2 by 34, and 43.1 by 31.6 

 millimeters. 



Young. — Incubation lasts for 20 or 21 days and is performed by 

 the female only. The young remain in the nest but a short time, 

 where they are brooded by their mother and carefully tended by 

 both parents. Several good observers have seen the mother bird 

 carry her young away between her legs. Dresser (1871) quotes 

 John J. Dalgleish as follows : 



I have had on three occasions the good fortune to see the woodcock in the 

 act of carrying her young. On the first occasion the bird rose from my feet 



