THE WOODCOCK. 313 



casionally drops five. These are white, blotched with 

 chocolate, and very symmetrical in shape. If she sits on 

 these the young are hatched early in May, but should 

 they be destroyed, she lays another set; hence it is not 

 unusual to meet chicks in August which are hardly able 

 to fly; yet they are killed by some persons. 



The mother takes the chicks to the feeding grounds as 

 soon as they are able to travel, and works diligently in 

 procuring them food, but should food become scarce or 

 the ground so hard that the young cannot bore through 

 it, she takes them, one at a time;, between her thighs, 

 and transports them to a region where it is more abund- 

 ant. When she is removing them, her flight is slow, 

 quivering, and labored, and she does not rise higher 

 above the ground than necessity compels her. After 

 reaching her new quarters, she seems to be very happy, 

 and nothing gives her so much pleasure as to see the 

 young feeding generously on juicy worms. Few moth- 

 ers are more devoted to their duties than the female 

 woodcock, for she will sometimes allow herself to be cap- 

 tured rather than desert her nest, and if any foe threat- 

 ens to assail her chicks, she pretends to be wounded and 

 flutters helplessly ahead of it until she has led it away 

 from them, when she rises suddenly and hastens to some 

 dense covert until she can rejoin her brood. A family of 

 woodcocks generally consists of six — the two adults and 

 four chicks. These remain together until the autumn, 

 then separate, and though they may stay in the same 

 coppice or swale, yet they seldom associate, but wander 

 about singly until they commence migrating to their win- 

 ter homes. Being largely nocturnal in habit, they seek for 

 their food chiefly at night, and return to the dense brakes 

 in which they live ere the day dawns. As they cat an enor- 

 mous quantity of worms — at least their own weight every 

 twenty -four hours — they get fat in a short time where 

 food is abundant. Their favorite haunts are rich swampy 

 14 



