176 FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



stantly ; by niglit he seeks his food ; by night he makes his 

 lono- and direct migrations, choosing for this latter pui-pose 

 foo-cry weather, at or about the full of the moon. 



By day he lies snugly ensconced, in some lonely brake, 

 among long grass and fera, under the shade of the dark alder 

 or the silveiy willow, and near to some marshy level, or muddy 

 streamlet's brink during the summer; but, in the autumn, on 

 some dry westering hill-side, clothed with dense second-growth 

 and saplings. 



In very quiet spots, especially where the covert overhead is 

 dense and shadowy, he sometimes feeds by day ; and it has 

 been my fortune once or twice to come upon him unsuspected 

 when so engaged, and to watch him for many minutes probing 

 the soft loam, which he loves the best, with his long bill, and 

 drawing forth his succulent food, from the smallest red wire- 

 worm to the largest lob-worm, suitable for the angler's bait 

 when fishing for Perch or the Yellow Bass of the Lakes. 



It is by the abundance of this food that his selection of haunts 

 is dictated, and his choice of seasons, in some considerable de- 

 gree, controlled. On sandy and hungiy soils, as of Long Island, 

 for example, he is found rarely in comparison, and never in the 

 large congregations which so rejoice the heart of the sportsman 

 in more favored localities. Still more does he eschew soui 

 marsh land and peat bogs, wherein, by the way, the worm he 

 most affects hardly exists; while on fat loamy bottom lands, 

 whether the color of the soil be red or black, rich with decom- 

 posed vegetable matter, he may be found in swarms. 



It must be understood, however, that after the young brood 

 have left the parent birds, which departure occui's after the first 

 moult, the "Woodcock is a solitary bird, acting and moving for 

 himself alone, although the same causes may draw hundreds of 

 them to one neighborhood, and never flying in flocks or associa- 

 ting in anywise with his fellows, until the commencement of the 

 breeding season. 



At this period of the year, from July I mean, to the begin- 

 ning of the moult, when the bird disappears from among us for 



