The Oologist. 



VOL XVI. NO. 2. ALBION, N. Y., MARCH, 1899. Whole No, 151 



Nesting- of the American Woodcock 

 in Southern Wisconsin. 



Long and diligently did I seai'ch, 

 often creeping on my hands and knees, 

 by the hour stooped low, very, very 

 carefully examining every leaf and bit 

 of gra«s or weeds, over acres of clear- 

 ing, which I later found to be the ideal 

 nesting sites and haunts of Pliilohela 

 minor, longing to find a nest, if only an 

 old last year's one, but not until May 

 11, 1890, was I rewarded, when, while 

 out hunting, with a friend of mine, he 

 caught a young oue, and we soon found, 

 what we supposed to be, the deserted 

 nest. My companion persisted in tak- 

 ing the young one home with him and 

 it of course died. 



Again in April 15, '91, I found, after 

 a long, tedious search, a set of four 

 eggs, that had been frozen, bleached 

 and broken open, lying in a hollow by 

 the side of an old stump. But not until 

 April 6, 1894, did I find, the long covet- 

 ed, "perfect set," and perfect set they 

 are too, four as handsome eggs, of any 

 kind, as I have seen. 



1 had been putting in a half day of 

 hard searching in a piece of Hazel 

 brush, thistles, grass, weeds, brush 

 heaps, etc., which I later termed my 

 Woodcock ranch, without finding any 

 thing, when I thought I would cross 

 the road and look through a strip of 

 small saplings alongside of the road and 

 where I thought I might find "some- 

 thing." I saw a team coming, so I hur- 

 ried across, jumped over the fence and 

 hurried into the woods, when suddenly, 

 whirr-r-r, just ahead, after watching 

 the bird until it was out of sight, I 

 glanced down, and, could I believe my 

 eyes? oh, no mistake, there they lay, 

 four!!! one — one— o — two— twooo — three 



- ee — eee— four— four — FOUR Yes sir 

 ree. four of 'em, no mistake, 'cos I only 

 got four fingers. I dropped to my 

 knees and feasted my eyes on them long 

 and earnestly, studied carefully their 

 position in the nest, the formation and 

 material of the nest, etc., finally I took 

 two iu each hand and came home, hap- 

 py as a kid with a pair of new boots, or 

 perhaps I ought to say in these days of 

 modern improvements (?) a new bike; 

 however happy I was then, I am sorry 

 now to think I left the nest; the nest 

 was simyly a few leaves piled up and 

 the pile somewhat depressed at the top 

 in which the eggs laid; it was placed at 

 the foot of some small saplings, would 

 measure probably 6 inches across the 

 depression, which was a half inch or so 

 deep. 



The eggs are beauties; three have a 

 rich buff, ground cclor, one a shade 

 darker than the others; the fourth has a 

 ground color of light cream; the three 

 darkest ones are quite heavily marked 

 with specks, spots of varying shades of 

 dark brown and lilao, thicker on the 

 larger third of tho egg; the other is 

 marked the same, but not so heavy; the 

 marking is peculiar. They look as if 

 they had been stood on end and given a 

 rotary movement about one- third of the 

 way around, and the colors applied 

 with a downward stroke of the brush, 

 as the eggs turned. Shape, pyriform; 

 measure, 1.50 x 1.21, 1.56 x 1.21, 1.56 x 

 1.14, 1.48 X 1.14 inches. 



This beautiful set to-day reposes on 

 an artificial uest of leaves in my cabi- 

 net, and whenever I show my collection 

 to an interested person I always point 

 out this particular set, which I value 

 highly on account of their rarety, beauty 

 and perfection. 



Again on April 26, 1896, I collected a 



