WOODCOCK 13 
slight depression was found, appearing somewhat 
dirtier than the otherwise clean snow. 
“We were beginning to think that the bird had taken 
this place in 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. 
This was no sooner suggested than we 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, continuing our efforts, we 
found a fine set of four eggs, the first lying directly 
in the middle and on top of the three other eggs and 
being separated from them 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 laid only three 
eggs and found difficulty in keeping on them for any 
great length of time. The woodcock lives on worms 
from soft, marshy ground, and, consequently, she 
could not remain a long time on the eggs, or, possibly, 
the large amount of falling snow made the bird con- 
tinually shift her position until, by this constant mov- 
ing, the eggs were covered with snow; then the next 
day the other egg was deposited as before mentioned. 
After this the second snowfall occurred, which the 
bird could not withstand, and so finally deserted nest 
and eggs. We found several more nests in the same 
way on that day, and in each case the eggs were found 
as described.” 
Mr. Reinecke records the finding in April, 1901, of 
five eggs in a woodcock’s nest on which the bird was 
