82 COCK SHOOTING 



some length of time, then suddenly pitches downward in a zigzag 

 flight, and drops into cover alongside his mate. He had soared 

 perhaps to a height of two hundred yards, enthralling the ear with a 

 music that was difficult to credit to a bird whose usual deportment 

 seems to convey a suggestion of deep-rooted melancholy. 



As compared with his European representative, the American 

 woodcock is a small bird, weighing from five to nine ounces, the 

 female usually exceeding the weight of the male by nearly two 

 ounces. It is eleven or twelve inches in length, and of this the bill 

 takes up from two and a half to three inches. Instead of having 

 the underneath part of the body barred with dusky waved lines, the 

 plumage below is a rich buffish brown, passing into paler tints on 

 breasts and neck, while the flecks of sooty black on the dark tawny 

 mottled back correspond so closely with the fallen foliage and occa- 

 sional patches of bare soil that many a time the observer mistakes 

 the bird for a little bunch of withered autumn leaves, until from 

 beneath his feet he springs with a sharp rattling sound, and goes 

 off in a blundering, inaccurate course, striking against the thick 

 boughs in his hurried flight. 



The whole of the upper surface of head and body is marked 

 with colour bands and charming ocellated spots in varied shades of 

 soft brown, such as so enhance the beauty of the moth tribe. Apart 

 from certain occasional extreme aberrations of colour, such as half 

 or fully developed albinism, there is extremely little variation to be 

 observed in the plumage. In this respect, as well as in its greater 

 fondness for warm climate in winter, the American bird offers a 

 distinct contrast to its European cousin. 



By the first week of August the young of the second hatching are 

 strong on the wing, and soon afterwards the birds nearly all disappear 

 from their usual haunts. In September they once more collect in 

 good condition and plumage. Whether meanwhile a southward 

 migratory movement has occurred, or whether the birds have been 

 hiding away in the recesses of the woods to undergo their moulting, 

 are contrary opinions which divide the sporting fraternity. 



When the late autumn arrives, and the white frosty October 

 moon is bringing down fresh flights of birds from the north, the 

 woodcock does not return to precisely the same feeding grounds 

 which it prefers during the summer season. 



Instead of haunting moist alder brakes, it now often chooses 

 some dry hillside gently sloping to the west or south, covered sparsely 

 with graceful young juniper trees with foliage now changed to a 

 pale grown gold. In such warm leas and sunny exposures it loves 

 to cuddle in the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun, and some- 

 times lies so close to the dogs that it almost has to be ' kicked up ' 



