EUROPEAN WOODCOCK 59 



leave the woods and cover for the adjoining meadows, or open land, over 

 which they disperse themselves, and are fully engaged in search of food 

 during the whole night. 



Mr. Slater (1898) observes: 



It is well known that woodcocks follow certain routes to their favorite feeding 

 grounds in the evening, as they also have preferences for certain woods and 

 certain parts of woods to lie in during the day. In short, they are very peculiar 

 and fanciful in their tastes, and are guided by circumstances not apparent to 

 us in their liking for one place rather than for another which seems to our 

 eyes to offer the same advantages. A wood above my father's late house, in 

 Northumberland, was a regular passing place for cocks, and at dusk on any 

 April or May evening a sight of half a dozen at least was a certainty, as they 

 passed rapidly above the trees, announced, long before they themselves were 

 visible, by their peculiar half squeak, half whistle. I have here seen them 

 " tilting " in the air in the manner described by St. John and others. It has 

 been suggested that this tilting (at which time they tumble and twirl about 

 in the air in pairs and threes, apparently prodding at one another with their 

 bills) is connected with pairing, but I can not think so, as I have witnessed it 

 as late as the end of May. I rather think it is pure playfulness, as of children 

 just out of school, after lying concealed and quiet most of the day. 



According to Yarrell (1871), woodcocks sometimes become ex- 

 hausted and fall into the sea on their migrations; but they do not 

 always perish, for he says : 



A woodcock when flushed on the coast has been known to settle on the sea, 

 and when again disturbed rose without difficulty and flew away. Numerous 

 instances are recorded of woodcocks alighting on the decks of ships in the Eng- 

 lish Channel and elsewhere. The rapidity of flight of this bird is at times so 

 great that a pane of plate glass more than three-eighths of an inch thick has 

 been smashed by the contact, and one was actually impaled on the weather 

 cock of one of the churches in Ipswich. 



Fall. — Mr. Slater (1898), writing of the fall migration in Great 

 Britain, saj^s: 



Though many breed wilh us. there is a large migration from the North in 

 the late autumn. If the moon is full about the end of October, they appear 

 to come in a big " rush " then, but sometimes in driblets as early as the end 

 of September, as late as mid-November. But their movements are largely 

 influenced by the wind and atmosphere as well as the moon; if the weather is 

 foggy or they are exhausted by a heavy contrary wind, they drop on the 

 coast as soon as they touch it, and large bags are sometimes made on the 

 sand hills by those on the lookout for them. If the wind is light and weather 

 clear, they seem to pass inland at once to favorite and suitable covers. Should 

 frost come — which drives the worms down, and also prevents the birds from 

 probing — cock move South and west. Therefore, it is in our southwest 

 counties, Wales and West Ireland, where, owing to the Gulf stream frost 

 and cold are seldom severe, that the best woodcock shooting is to be had. 

 after the seasonal migration is over. Though they travel as a rule at night, 

 and chiefly at the time of the full moon, this is not invariably the case; on 

 October 28, 1881, I saw a woodcock come straight in from the sea, 20 yards 



