AMERICAN WOODCOCK 125 



perience, who, when I had told him that I had 

 seen a woodcock perched in a tree, listened with 

 a politely incredulous smile, saying nothing, but 

 looking — "Well, I may want to tell you a 'bus- 

 ter' to match that when I have the time to manu- 

 facture it." He is now convinced, for he has 

 seen with his own eyes. I have in mind an- 

 other case where a man killed one that was 

 perching in an apple tree at dusk — shot him 

 with a club, too — but there! I see that my 

 reputation for truth-telling is entirely gone ! 



Yet why should not a Woodcock alight in a 

 tree? He passes his entire life in the thickest 

 tangle of the woods, and what is there strange 

 in his settling on a limb if he likes? "But," 

 said one scoffer, "the Woodcock's foot is not 

 in the least fitted for the perching habit; he 

 could never keep on a limb." Certainly he is 

 as well fitted for it as a woodduck, a hooded 

 merganser, a whistler, a goose, or an upland 

 plover, and there seems to be no difficulty for 

 the same people to believe that the snipe, his 

 first cousin and much more a bird of the open 

 country, will fly up into a tree when alarmed 

 near its nest. The habit in the case of the 

 Woodcock also seems to be more common dur- 



