WOODCOCK 27 
cock. At the same season snipe abounded in enormous 
numbers, and for the same reason. 
Another casual, but purely local, agent of destruc- 
tion to the woodcock is the forest fires, which burn so 
frequently in many of the Eastern States and which 
run through groves or swamps where the woodcock 
have their nests. In such States as New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts, 
small brush or forest fires started by careless railroad 
engineers or thoughtless boys, occur in autumn and 
spring, and these may travel over considerable stretches 
of country, destroying great numbers of young seedling 
trees, burning through the leaves, dry underbrush and 
dead branches of swamps, and destroying the nests 
of quail, woodcock and ruffed grouse, and sometimes 
even injuring the birds themselves. These fires, while 
doing harm here and there, are not of regular occur- 
rence and work but little injury compared with those 
prairie fires which in old times used to sweep over the 
fertile States of the West, destroying the nests of the 
prairie chickens, leaving the country bare of food for 
them and often causing the farmer the loss of some of 
his haystacks, or even of some of his buildings. Yet 
the harm done by these eastern fires is a serious matter 
in a region where game birds are few. An area so 
burnt over is not likely to be occupied by woodcock 
for several years. The birds will not breed there, nor, 
in most cases, will they resort to such a burnt area for 
food or rest. 
The years 1908 and 1909 seem to have shown dur- 
