WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 97 



ference to this point, inclined us to think that 

 this sense was obtuse in our bird. 



Mr. Bowles, an English traveller, who, many 

 years since, had the pleasure of observing wood- 

 cock feed in an aviary, supposed that they dis- 

 covered their prey by this faculty alone, because 

 he noticed that in boring they never struck their 

 bill into the earth further than the orifice of the 

 nostrils. The inference, however, is fallible, for 

 the reason that birds breathe chiefly through 

 their spiracles, and are very sensitive to the in- 

 troduction of any thing but air into them, as you 

 may easily satisfy yourself by noticing pigeons 

 and fowls when they drink, or feed upon soft 

 food. 



The circumstance that the woodcock, as he 

 expresses it, " never missed its aim," is more con- 

 clusive. Microscopic dissection has revealed the 

 fact, that the bill of the bird in question is sup- 

 plied with a branch of the cranical nerves, the 

 minute filaments of which are distributed to the 

 knob at the end of the upper mandible, as in the 

 case of the snipe scolopax Wilsonii the tip of 

 whose bill after death becomes finely pitted or 

 dimpled, though in life it is very smooth; the 

 sense of hearing in birds is supposed to be much 

 more -delicate than that of smell ; the sight is the 



