peenk close beside you, and as you turn to 

 listen and locate the sound a woodcock slants 

 swiftly up over your head and begins to whirl 



j L j o 



in a spiral towards the heavens, clucking and 

 twittering ecstatically. It is a poor kind of 

 song, not to be compared with that of the oven- 

 bird or grass-plover, who do the same thing 

 at twilight, and Whitooweek must help his 

 voice by the clicking of his wings and by 

 the humming of air through them, like the 

 sharp voice of a reed in windy weather; but 

 it sounds sweet enough, no doubt, to the 

 little brown mate who is standing perfectly 

 still near you, watching and listening to the 

 performance. At an enormous height, for 

 him, Whitooweek whirls about madly for 

 a few moments and then retraces his spiral 

 downwards, clucking and twittering the while, 

 until he reaches the tree-tops, where he folds 

 his wings directly over his mate and drops 

 like a plummet at her head. Still she does 

 not move, knowing well what is coming, and 

 when within a few feet of the ground Whit- 

 ooweek spreads his wings wide to break his 

 fall and drops quietly close beside her. There 



