2Q2 BREWSTER, Notes and Song-Flight of the Woodcock. 



Auk 

 Oct. 



The song-flight (timed once) from start to finish, the bird being 

 actually seen to leave the ground and to alight on his return, 

 lasted just one minute. We watched the bird through several 

 flights. He always sprang directly into the wind and flew 

 nearly straight for about ioo yards, rising at a very slight angle 

 with the ground. He then turned, sometimes to the right, 

 sometimes to the left, and flew about 200 yards with the wind, 

 curving slightly and mounting rapidly on this stretch especially 

 near its end. The next stretch, a half spiral, carried him to the 

 highest elevation, about 300 feet. He then described a rather 

 large circle on a level plane and after this flew about irregularly 

 in smaller, incomplete circles and broad spiral curves all of 

 which inclined downward. Once he described a double curve 

 nearly like the letter S. Although he was a strong and musical 

 singer he did not pitch down on zigzag lines while singing like 

 all the other birds that I have seen, but merely followed the 

 gently sloping lines just described, his descent, during the song, 

 being scarcely more steep than during the twittering which 

 immediately preceded the song. He looked very bat-like, 

 darting irresolutely about in the dusky sky. The song proper 

 was interspersed with more or less twittering. At its close the 

 bird shot down in the usual manner on set wings, flapping his 

 wings a number of times to check his speed just before he 

 reached the ground. Sometimes he would alight immediately 

 after this flapping, sometimes skim close over the earth for 

 several rods before finally settling. 



By making a quick run while the bird was in the air I 

 succeeded in reaching and crouching behind a small cedar on the 

 edge of the opening where he usually alighted. He settled on 

 the further edge of this within about fifty feet of me, and for a 

 moment or two stood perfectly still. Then he uttered about 

 twenty paaps without changing his position or taking a single 

 step. Each paap was closely preceded by a p't-u/, so closely 

 at times that the two sounds were nearly merged, suggesting that 

 one of them might be mechanical ! Sometimes two p't-?ds 

 preceded the paap. 



The delivery of each paap was accompanied by an abrupt 

 backward, followed by a forward and downward, jerk of the head 

 and a slight opening of the wings. The bird did not turn about 



