JoNE 1. 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



131 



beautiful downy youug woodcock, of about three days old, 

 lying llat amongst the brown and withered leaves — its 

 colouring of various shades of bufif and browr, and its 

 striking markings, harmonizing in a wonderful way with 

 its surroundings. About eighteen inches away from this 

 bird, and within an inch of my foot, were three more, 

 lying in the same position, stiff and motionless, as if dead, 

 but betrayed by their bright black eyes. It is a well- 

 known habit of a great many young birds of this kind, 

 which are able to walk almost as soon as they are 

 hatched, to lie pressed, one might say, against the ground, 

 when they think there is an enemy afoot ; and as the 

 colouring of the bird usually, and especially so in the wood- 

 cock, matches the colour of the ground, they are exceedingly 

 difficult to see. Moreover, they often sham death I 

 turned these birds over on their backs, and took them up 

 in my hands, but they still remained stiff and immovable. 

 It was not until they had been handled for some little time 

 that they began to comprehend that they were discovered, 

 and then they were anxious to get away and hide. This 

 shamming of death is evidently only the last means resorted 

 to for escaping discovery, as they first hide in any tuft of 

 grass or little cover that may be near. Indeed, unless one 

 runs up at once to the place from which the old bird has 

 been Hushed from her young, they will have effectually 

 hidden themselves. The young woodcock that I found 

 first was separated from the others ; it was no doubt the 

 most active of the four, and had got up immediately the 

 old bird flew off, but as soon as it heard me coming it must 

 have crouched down again. 



When these young birds were roused, and began to 

 walk, the position of the wings was most noticeable ; they 

 were carried stretched out at right angles to the body. 

 This seems a most curious and unaccountable habit, and I 

 know of no other young bird that has it. The advantage 

 of holding the wings in this position is not apparent. It 

 first strikes one that it is for the sake of balancing the 

 bird, but the feet appear large enough to enable a bird 

 three times the size of the young woodcock to keep its 

 balance. Moreover, the young birds are quite able to walk 

 without their wings open, as I proved by putting one in a 

 thick place where it could not do this, and it walked 

 perfectly easily. Neither can the object be to attract the 

 attention of the parent birds, for the shrill, plaintive chirp 

 is amply sufficient for this purpose. Although the advan- 

 tage of this habit is not apparent, its disadvantages 

 are obvious. It renders the bird very conspicuous, and 

 when walking it can be seen at a considerable distance. 

 Besides this, the wings catch in every little obstacle, such 

 as a blade of grass or a stalk of a fern, and thus the bird 

 is sometimes even tripped up ; biit as it gets on its feet 

 again it proceeds in the same way, never seeming to learn 

 by experience. There is no doubt a good reason for this 

 curious way of carrying the wings, but it is hard to find. 



Another noticeable point in the habits of young wood- 

 cocks is that they cannot be induced to run like other 

 young birds — they always walk. 



It may be mentioned here that later in the day we found 

 another brood of woodcocks. These birds must have been 

 hatched in the first week of April (a very early date), for 

 they had lost their down and were covered with half-grown 

 feathers. These older birds made little attempt to conceal 

 themselves, and they, too, walked with wings outstretched ; 

 and so conspicuous were their large wings that the birds 

 could be seen quite fifty yards away. 



In the drawing reproduced in the accompanying plate, 

 the bird (about three days old) in the foreground is seen 

 to be walking away in this characteristic attitude, while 

 two others are shown lying on the ground overshadowed 



by twigs of sprouting oak. The woodcock* is indeed an 

 interesting bird, and there is much yet to be learnt about it. 



After half an hour or so spent thus pleasantly wiih the 

 woodcock I regained my companions, who were listening 

 to the extraordinary spring song of a green woodpecker. 

 Now a woodpecker of any sort is the last bird from which 

 one would expect to hear a song ; yet this bird, whose 

 ordinary note is the well-known harsh, unmusical laugh, 

 seems to be completely carried away by the joys of the 

 awakening spring, and it actually attempts a song ! The 

 song is a rambling, indefinite piece of music, but it is soft 

 and not unpleasing, and is suggestive of the highest 

 degree of pleasure. I think this song of the green wood- 

 pecker is little known, and, at all events, no mention ia 

 made of it in standard ornithological works. I have only 

 heard it two or three times, and on each occasion in April. 

 The bird — and no doubt it is the male — utters it on 

 the wing when chasing its mate. It may be that this song 

 is only used during courtship, and in that case it would 

 seem to be exclusively a love song. 



The woodpeckers disappeared, and we walked on out of 

 the plantation and over a stream to visit an old beech 

 tree, in which we had known tawny owls to nest for the 

 past eight years. The bird that has occupied this hollow 

 beech for the last two years is decidedly original in her 

 habits. Usually it is only necessary to tap a tree in which 

 a tawny owl is nesting, or throw a stick up the tree, and 

 out flies the bird. This particular bird, however, will 

 never budge an inch, however hard you tap, or however 

 many sticks and stones you throw up its tree. This eccen- 

 tricity is a great protection to the nest, for the tree is not 

 very easy to climb, and, unless the bird flies out and thus 

 eggs or young become a moral certainty, most prowling 

 marauders think it not worth while to climb the tree. 



We, however, knowing the habits of this particular bird, 

 scaled the tree, and on looking down the hole, there, sure 

 enough, was the owl. Nothing seems to disturb this bird. 

 On every occasion on which I have visited it, it has appeared 

 to be in a stupor. It allows itself to be turned over on its 

 back, to have the young ones taken from under it — in fact, 

 to be ill-treated in every sort of way short of actual injury. 

 It never resents nor makes any sound or movement, nor 

 does it even deign to open its eyes. This is certainly a 

 very original tawny owl, and I suspect that its eccentricities 

 will prove an advantage both to itself and its progeny. 



Among the remains of many a repast in this owl's nest 

 was the leg of a fall-grown rabbit. The tawny owl very 

 rarely takes a tuU-grown rabbit ; but with three young 

 ones — which are, indeed, hard to satisfy — to provide with 

 food, we must excuse this small breach in the confidence 

 we place in him as a game preserver rather than destroyer, 

 and set it off against the number of mice and rats which 

 we know are disposed of by our friend the owl. 



During our long walk home we passed through the most 

 varied country, and saw many sights which strike the 

 naturalist as especially beautiful. Let me mention one. 

 In a grassy swamp, on the edge of a moor, we found 

 several lapwings' nests. The eggs were laid in a slight 

 hollow on the top of turf-covered heaps raised by moles. 

 The birds, no doubt, found these very convenient nesting 

 sites, for their eggs were thus raised high and dry. 



Had we needed further proof of the illimitable resources 

 of our weU-loved haunt as a means of whetting the 

 appetite of the ornithologist (we cannot say satisfying, for 

 the ornithologist is insatiable), surely what we found and 

 saw that day was proof for ever. 



* See also article ou ■' Protective Resemblance," and photograph 

 of a " Woodcock on its Neet," in Kkowledge for March, 1896. 



