199 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 



underwood, and the trees oak, birch, and larch, not 

 exceeding thirty years' growth." Another says: that 

 " they are placed amongst dead grass and leaves, with- 

 out any attempt at concealment." In Norway, the 

 eggs are found merely placed on the bare ground, 

 under brushwood, or where the young spruce fir was 

 again springing from a space only just cleared of the 

 old trees. The most remarkable peculiarity in the 

 formation of the woodcock, is the stnicture of its bill : 

 an adaptation to the pui-poses of its existence, no 

 less curious than interesting. The upper mandible 

 measures about three inches, and is furrowed nearly 

 its whole length, basally compressed, and cui-ved at 

 the tip, which projects, and forms a kind of Itnob, 

 which is very sensitive, and capable of discrimination 

 of its food (principally worms), which it extracts from 

 moist grounds by means of its sharp and pointed 

 tongue. The bill is intersected by numerous veins. 

 The eye is large, and so constructed as to catch the 

 faintest rays of light, — a necessity, since it is a noc- 

 turnal wanderer. The digestion of woodcocks is 

 singularly rapid, and their feeding propensities quite 

 out of proportion with other birds : they thiTist their 

 bills, endowed, as we have seen, with a wonderful 

 delicacy of feeling, into the soft mud of the marsh or 

 shore, in search of the aquatic lai-vse of insects and 

 small worms ; and thus they bore miceasingly during 

 the greatest part of the night for the food, that is no 

 sooner taken than it is in process of digestion. The 

 woodcock measures about fourteen inches in length, 



