American Woodcock. 215 



even been observed to seize between her two feet a young- 

 ling and fly with it away a behavior whose purpose seemed 

 to be the diversion of the enemy from the rest of the brood, 

 thus giving them a chance to flee from impending peril to 

 places of security in the surrounding verdure. After all 

 danger has disappeared, she summons them together again 

 by a familiar call, and doubtless relates to them the story of 

 her adventures and the dangers from which they were saved. 

 Worms, animalcula, ants and other soft-bodied insects, which 

 the parents assist them in procuring from the soft earth, and 

 from beneath the grass and dead leaves that abound in the 

 places they frequent, constitute their food. Later on they 

 are able to obtain their subsistence, with all the address of 

 older birds, by thrusting their bills into the soil and in such 

 other places as would be likely to contain the objects desired. 

 Their tongues, covered with a viscid saliva, adhere to the 

 food, and when drawn into the mouth carry it with them 

 without danger of being lost. All who have made these 

 birds a study have often discerned holes made in the soft 

 mud by their bills. The presence of these " borings," as 

 they are called, is always an indication that game is not far 

 distant, which a careful exploration of the locality soon 

 verifies. The young, when matured, continue to occupy the 

 same haunts with their parents, and, unless brought to an 

 untimely death by the merciless gun of the hunter, repair 

 to the warm, sunny, smiling South with the return of frost. 

 In the Middle States and the same is doubtless true of 

 other sections of our great country there is never more 

 than a single brood raised, although the early breeding of 

 the species would certainly afford time for a second hatching 

 before the close of the season. Less pyriform are the eggs 

 of the Woodcock than waders' mostly are, being, in some 

 instances, almost ovoidal. Their ground-color varies from a 

 light clay to one of buffy-brown, and the markings occur in 

 the form of fine spots and blotches of chocolate-brown, inter- 

 spersed with others of obscure lilac, more or less thickly 



