WOOD-DUCK—WOODPECKER 1045 
The Woodcock inhabits suitable localities across the northern 
part of the Old World, from Ireland to Japan, migrating southward 
towards autumn. Asa species it is said to be resident in the Azores 
and other Atlantic Islands; but it is not known to penetrate very 
far into Africa during the winter, though in many parts of India 
it is abundant during the cold weather, and reaches even Ceylon 
and Tenasserim. The popular belief that Woodcocks live “by 
suction” is perhaps hardly yet exploded; but those who have ob- 
served them in confinement know that they have an almost insatiable 
appetite for earthworms, which the birds seek by probing soft ground 
with their highly sensitive and flexible bill! This fact seems to 
have been first placed on record by Bowles,? who noticed it in the 
royal aviary at San Hdefonso in Spain, and it has been corroborated 
by other observers, and especially by Montagu, who discovered that 
bread and milk made an excellent substitute for their ordinary food. 
The eastern part of North America possesses a Woodcock, much 
smaller than though generally (and especially in habits) similar to 
that of the Old continent. It is the Scolopax minor of most authors ; 
but, chiefly on account of its having the outer three primaries remark- 
ably attenuated, it has been placed in a separate genus, Philohela. 
In Java is found a distinct and curiously-coloured species, described 
and figured many years ago by Horsfield (Z'rans. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 
191, and Zool. Res. pl.) as S. satwrata. To this Mr. Seebohm (Geogr. 
Distr. Charadr. p. 506, pl.) referred the S. rosenbergi of Schlegel 
_(Nederl. Tijds. Dierk. iv. p. 54) from New Guinea; but, as the 
culpable destruction of the type-specimen of the former (during its 
transfer from the old museum of the East India Company to the 
British Museum) has made a comparison of the two impossible, the 
identification can scarcely be said to be free from doubt. Another 
species is S. rochusseni from the Moluccas, but this last, though 
resembling the other Woodcocks in most of the characters which 
distinguish them from the SNIPES, has like the latter the lower 
part of the tibia bare of feathers. 
WOOD-DUCK, 4x sponsa (page 171): WOOD-HEN (see 
WEKA, page 1031): WOODLARK (pages 509, 510). 
WOODPECKER, a bird that pecks or picks holes in wood, and 
from this habit is commonly reputed to have its name; but since 
it is in some parts of England also known as ‘ Woodspeight ” 
tion. Sir R. Payne-Gallwey, in the ‘Badminton Library’ (Shooting, ii. p. 118, 
note), states that he himself has witnessed the performance. 
1 The pair of muscles said by Loche (Zxpl. Scient. de ? Algérie, ii. p. 293) to 
exist in the maxilla, and presumably to direct the movement of the bill, do not 
seem to have as yet been precisely described. 
2 Introduccion a la Historia Natural y a la Geografia fisica de Espaiia, pp. 
454, 455 (Madrid: 1775). 
