Woodcock 253 



IS more wonderfully adapted to its work than 

 the bill of these snipe, which is a long, straight 

 boring instrument, its upper half fitted with a 

 flexible tip for hooking the worm out of its hole 

 as you would lift a string out of a jar on your 

 hooked finger. Down goes the bill into the 

 mud, sunk to the nostrils; then the upper tip 

 feels around for its slippery victim. You need 

 scarcely hope to see the probing performance 

 because earth-worms, like mice, come out of their 

 holes after dark, which is why snipe are most 

 active then. 



A little boy once asked me this conundrum of 

 his own making : " What is the difference between 

 Martin Luther and a woodcock ? " Just a few 

 differences suggested themselves, but I did not 

 guess right the very first time ; can you ? " One 

 didn't like a Diet of Worms and the other does,'* 

 was the small boy's answer. 



After the ground freezes hard in the north- 

 ern United States and Canada, the woodcock 

 is compelled to go south to Virginia. But by 

 the time the skunk cabbage and bright-green, 

 fluted leaves of hellebore are pushing through 

 the bogs and wet woodlands in earliest spring, 

 back he comes again. An odd-looking, thick- 

 necked, chunky fellow he is, less than a foot in 

 length, his long, straight, stout bill sticking far 

 out from his triangular head; his eyes placed 

 ^ far back in the upper corners that he must 



