THE OOLOGIST. 135 



Woodcock in Hard Luck. 



In our locality April 13th is usually the time to look for full sets of Woodcock 

 eggs. This year as in others was no exception, although if you remember on 

 that date and the next day we were visited by a tremendous snowfall to the 

 extent of about 8 inches, which was partially melted by the sun and froze hard 

 again during the night, and two days later another snow-fall occured. Saturday 

 morning found me on the Cattaraugus Reservation, which is an ideal locality 

 for the nesting of this bird. The ground was completely covered with about 

 D inches of crust covered snow. In company with a couple of Indian boys, we 

 immediately began our search for the Woodcock or their traces. We soon found 

 the tracks of a pair where they had been feeding or trying to, around partly 

 frozen water holes. We flushed the birds and began looking the ground or rather 

 snow over carefully for the nests, but found none in that vicinity, but on 

 following the back tracks of a single bird, which evidently were made the 

 previous day, we found after following those tracks at least a quarter of a mile, 

 the spot where the bird had evidently started on his walk to the water holes' 

 On examining the place nothing but a slight depression was found, appearing 

 somewhat more dirty than the otherwise clean snow. We were begining to think 

 that the bird had taken this place, which was a small clump of bushes as a 

 refuge from the snow storms, when it was suggested, that perhaps after all the 

 nest might be under the hard frozen snow. No sooner suggested, than we all 

 were down on our knees, taking turns at melting the snow with our breath. 

 After a few minutes we were rewarded by the sight of one egg, and by continu- 

 ing we found a fine set of four eggs, the first egg lying directly in the middle 

 and on top of the other three eggs, and being separated by a layer of at least 

 an inch of snow. From this I take it that when the first snow storm came, the 

 bird had only three eggs laid and had a hard time keeping on the eggs for any 

 great length of time, as the Woodcock lives on worms in the soft marshy ground, 

 and consequently could not remain a long time on the eggs, or the vast 

 amount of falling snow made the bird continually shift until by constantly 

 moving the eggs were covered with snow, then the next day the other egg was 

 deposited as before mentioned, when the last snow-fall occured, which the bird 

 could not withstand and finally deserted nest and eggs. We found several more 

 sets in the same way on that day, and in each case the eggs were found as 

 described. 



They are beautifully marked and colored from light to dark shades and vary 

 greatly in size. 



Edward Reinecke, Buffalo, N. Y. 



