298 WOODCOCK AND SNIPE 



Shaw, from whose work the above extract is taken, remarks that in his 

 opinion "the way a woodcock starts is ... to grasp, say, the left 

 wing of the young bird near the body with, say, the left foot and then 

 to spring off the ground on the free foot, afterwards using the free 

 foot to grasp the young bird's other wing." 



At times, however, in the face of danger the parents behave quite 

 differently. Instead of bearing their young off to a place of safety, 

 they adopt the more usual method prevailing among birds of feigning 

 injury and so drawing pursuit upon themselves and away from their 

 young. Perhaps the device is adopted when surprised too suddenly 

 to enable them to seize the offspring. There are records innumer- 

 able of the behaviour of the woodcock under these circumstances, 

 and as an example thereof we cite the account of Mr. Ussher, 1 who 

 remarks, " If an intruder approach the young the parent bird will fly 

 round instead of away from him; and when its alarm is strongly 

 excited, as by the presence of a dog, a woodcock will utter outcries 

 that have been compared to the screaming of a hawk, and tumble on 

 the ground before the object of its apprehension. I was informed by 

 my late gamekeeper, Richard Wolfe, that when he was walking with 

 beagles through a wood where these birds were breeding, one of them 

 alighted in front of a dog, and running forward, flapped its wing at 

 the animal with loud cries." Similarly, St. John 2 remarks, " When 

 disturbed from her nest, she flutters away like a partridge, pretending 

 to be lame, in order to take the attention of the intruder away from 

 her young or eggs." 



The subject of migration having been dealt with earlier in this 

 section, little need be said on this theme here. But a few points are 

 worthy of comment. In the first place, the immigrant woodcock, 

 which arrive on our shores during October, attract more attention 

 than the emigrants, which seem to steal away unobserved. The arrival 

 of the immigrants excites no wonderment, for vast hosts of birds of all 



1 Birds of Ireland, p. 274. 



2 Wild Sports of the Highlands, p. 248. 



