BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 



sometimes apt to be fired with a sudden zeal 

 to shoot the little bird, which may cost one 

 of them his eyesight. According to the poet, 



"Lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade ; " 

 and so no doubt they do at meal-time after 

 sunset, but we are more used to flushing 

 them amid dry bracken or in the course of 

 some frozen ditch. Quite apart, however, 

 from its exhilarating effect on the sportsman, 

 the bird has quieter interests for the natural- 

 ist, since in its food, its breeding habits, its 

 travels, and its appearance it combines 

 more peculiarities than perhaps any other 

 bird, certainly than any other of the sports- 

 man's birds, in these islands. It is not, 

 legally speaking, a game-bird and was not 

 included in the Act of 1824, but a game- 

 licence is required for shooting it, and it 

 enjoys since 1880 the protection accorded 

 to other wild birds. This is excellent, so far 

 as it goes, but it ought to be protected during 

 the same period as the pheasant, particularly 

 now that it is once more established as a 

 resident species all over Britain and Ireland. 

 This new epoch in the history of its ad- 

 ventures in these islands is the work of the 

 22 



