THE AMEEICAN WOODCOCK. 191 



points to the pole, to the very wood and the very brake 

 of the wood in which he was hatched, and commences 

 the duties of nidification. 



I am inclined to believe that the woodcock are already 

 paired when they come on to the northward ; if not, 

 they do so without the slightest delay, for they unques- 

 tionably begin to lay within a week or two after their 

 arrival, sometimes even before the snow has melted from 

 the upland. Sometimes they have been known to lay so 

 early as February, but March and the beginning of 

 April are their more general season. Their nest is very 

 inartificially made of dry leaves and stalks of grass. 

 The female lays from four to five eggs, about an inch 

 and a half long, by an inch in diameter, of a dull clay 

 color, marked with a few blotches of dark brown inter- 

 spersed with splashes of faint purple. It is a little 

 doubtful whether the woodcock does or does not rear a 

 second brood of young, unless the first hatching is 

 destroyed, as is very frequently the case, by spring 

 floods, which are very fatal to them. In this case, they 

 do unquestionably jDreed a second time, for I have 

 myself found the young birds, skulking about like young 

 mice in the long grass, unable to fly, and covered with 

 short blackish down, the most uncouth and comical look- 

 ing little wretches imaginable, during early July shoot- 

 ing ; but it is on the whole my opinion that, at least on 

 early seasons, they generally raise two broods ; and this, 



