14 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
sketched and from which she was afterward fright- 
ened. The number is very unusual, if not previously 
unexampled. 
As soon as the young emerge from the egg, they 
leave the nest and follow the mother. Thencefor- 
ward their development is rapid, and young birds have 
been found well able to fly by April 10. Two broods 
are usually reared in the Middle States. A curious 
habit of the woodcock, which, though well attested, is 
as yet but little understood, is its practice of carry- 
ing its young from place to place, apparently to avoid 
danger. Exactly how the mother bird does this is 
not certainly known, but the weight of evidence seems 
to show that she holds it clasped between her thighs, 
as a rider does his horse, and does not carry it in 
her weak and slender claws. She will sometimes 
thus transport her young for a hundred yards or more, 
and if pursued will even make a second flight with it. 
By the last of July, in favorable seasons, the young 
of the second hatching are quite fit to look out for 
themselves, and early in August the woodcock disap- 
pear—that is to say, can no longer be found by those 
who search for them. They retire to the dry hillsides 
among the heavy undergrowth, and remain there until 
the moult is complete. From such places—often among 
thick growths of hazel or witch-hazel—they may some- 
times be flushed by the ornithologist who is searching 
for early migrants. In September they collect once 
more in their accustomed haunts, and then are fat, in 
good plumage, and fit for the gun. 
