232 SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE. 



would be unable to procure at any distance from the 

 nest. Charles St. John, in his Natural History and 

 Sport in Moray (p. 210), says : 



" I have again seen the old Woodcocks carrying 

 their young down to the soft, marshy places to feed. 

 Unfitted as their feet appear to be for grasping 

 anything, the old birds must have no slight labour 

 in carrying their whole family (generally consisting 

 of four) every evening to the marshes, and back 

 again in the morning. They always return before 

 sunrise. Occasionally I have come upon a brood 

 of young Woodcocks in a dark, quiet, swampy part 

 of the woods, near which they have probably been 

 bred. In a case of the kind we may suppose that 

 the old birds are saved the trouble of conveying 

 their young to a distant feeding-place ; but as the 

 young birds are frequently hatched in long heather 

 in dry situations, and far from any marshes, they 

 would inevitably perish in the nest were they not 

 daily carried backwards and forwards by their 

 parents. The quantity of worms required to 

 sustain one of these birds would astonish those 

 town -bred naturalists who gravely assert that the 

 Woodcock * lives on suction.' . As soon as the 





