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 
